Dynamic wetting in morphologically complex porous media

Numerical simulation allows computing fundamental properties regarding the dynamics of immiscible fluid flows in morphologically complex porous media such as reservoir rocks resolved at the micrometric pore scale with high resolution X-ray computed tomography. Phenomena where one invading fluid is injected into the pore space to displace the defending one are used to estimate, via up-scaling, the variables of interest, such as relative permeabilities and capillary pressures. The dynamics of the displacement is determined by the pore space morphology, the rock wettability to the different fluids, the fluid rheology, the flow regime and the resulting evolution of the interface between the two competing fluids. Usually CFD simulations are based on a constant static contact angle model. This limitation is relaxed in the present contribution, where a dynamic contact angle model is used to simulate a simple twophase flow for which the analytical solution is known and a laminar oil/water flow through a digital rock sample.