Pressure Fluctuations in Porous Media Flows

The investigation of porous media flows is a topic of pivotal importance for several aspects of human activity. The extraction of water from natural reservoirs and the recovery of oil from subsea rocks are two examples where the knowledge of porous media physics brings immediate economical and societal impact. One point that makes experiments in porous media particularly challenging is the fact that natural porous media, such as soils and rocks, are never transparent. By using artificial micro-models, one can overcome this challenge. In this project we will perform experiments in which one fluid will displace another in a quasi-2D porous network. We will take pressure measurements and images of the flow simultaneously and we will try to correlate the outcomes of these two measures. One of the main objectives is to try to use the fluctuations in the pressure signal to obtain indirect information about the properties of the porous network (such as its porosity) and the fluids involved (such as their viscosity contrast). This can provide the means for the development of new measuring techniques based on the pressure signal only, which can be further employed in the investigation of natural porous media.