Upscaling Hydrodynamic Dispersion in Non?Newtonian Fluid Flow Through Porous Media

Hydrodynamic dispersion in flow through porous media is an essential phenomenon many geosystems. While of Newtonian fluids relatively well-understood, subsurface applications, such as groundwater remediation, use the flooding system with non-Newtonian fluids, polymer oxidants. Despite its significance, however, very limited studies have been carried out focusing on hydrodynamic fluids. The present study addresses a fundamental question regarding how solute transport differs from limit. We report results extensive pore-scale upscaling advection-diffusion non-Newtonian, shear thinning fluid disordered and spatially-correlated media, using advanced GPU-based simulator order to delineate effects fluid's rheology, dynamics flow, spatial correlations dispersion. simulations indicate surprising non-monotonic relation between injection rate (or velocity) dispersivity. dispersivity constant regime that we study, find, shear-dependent. This highlights gap existing theories materials for which can lead erroneous estimates coefficients when rheology cannot be represented by mechanics.