Enhanced thermal fingering in a shear-thinning fluid flow through porous media: Dynamic pore network modeling

Thermal-viscous fingering instability in porous media is a common phenomenon nature as well many scientific problems and industrial applications. Despite the importance, however, thermal transport flow of non-Newtonian fluid resulting has not been studied extensively, especially if pore space heterogeneous. In this paper, we propose network model with full graphics processing unit-parallelized acceleration to simulate through three-dimensional unstructured networks at centimeter scale, containing millions pores. A Meter equation proposed temperature- shear stress-dependent rheology fluids. After comparing simulation results an analytical solution for location front spatially uncorrelated network, both Newtonian fluids correlated over range injection rates. The simulations indicate that rate, shear-thinning rheology, morphological heterogeneity all enhance thermal-viscous media, but distinct patterns. networks, average temperature apparent viscosity breakthrough point exhibit non-monotonic dependence on rate. An analysis fractal dimension patterns supports conclusion. highlight importance designing optimal conditions application purposes.