Transport in Porous Media, Vol.92, No.3, 649-665, 2012
A Phenomenological Approach to Modeling Transport in Porous Media
The objective of this article is to make use of the phenomenological approach to construct models for the transport of extensive quantities, such as mass of a fluid phase, mass of a component of a fluid phase, momentum of a phase and energy, in porous medium domains. Special attention is devoted to express the fluxes of these extensive quantities, especially the non-advective ones, as functions of their relevant driving forces, obeying the principle of minimum entropy production. It is shown that for each extensive quantity, we have a linear diffusive flux term, a non-linear diffusive term, and a dispersive flux term. The latter is shown to be proportional to the velocity squared. In each case, the number of moduli that describe fluid and porous matrix properties is determined. Themomentum balance equation for a porous medium domain, which is the "motion equation," is analyzed and simplified for special cases, leading to Darcy's law and to Brinkman's equation.