Journal of Porous Media, 16 (1): 29–40 (2013)

AN ANALYTICAL EXPRESSION FOR THE DISPERSION

COEFFICIENT IN POROUS MEDIA USING CHANG’S
UNIT CELL

Helen D. Lugo-Méndez, Francisco J. Valdés-Parada, &

J. Alberto Ochoa-Tapia∗

Departamento de I.P.H., Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, Av. San Rafael

Atlixco 186, Col. Vicentina, 09340, México, D.F., Mexico

∗
Address all correspondence to J. Alberto Ochoa-Tapia E-mail: jaot@xanum.uam.mx

Original Manuscript Submitted: 1/20/2012; Final Draft Received: 4/26/2012

Mathematical modeling of transport phenomena in hierarchical systems is often carried out by means of effective
medium equations resulting from upscaling techniques. For the case of convection and diffusion taking place at the
pore scale, the upscaled model is expressed in terms of a total dispersion tensor, which encompasses the essential features
from the microscale. Several theoretical and experimental works have evidenced that the dispersion coefficient follows
a power-law dependence with the particle Péclet number. In this work, we show that such functionality can be derived
analytically using the method of volume averaging with Chang’s unit cell. Our derivations lead to an expression for the
dispersion coefficient that reduces to the classical result by Maxwell under purely diffusive conditions. Interestingly, the
dispersivity is found to follow a nontrivial functionality with the particle Péclet number. The predictions from our ana-
lytical expression are compared with those obtained by solving the same closure problem in periodic unit cells showing,
in general, good agreement, especially for homothetic unit cells.

KEY WORDS: dispersion, porous media, creeping flow, upscaling, Chang’s unit cell, analytical solution

1. INTRODUCTION sociated with the microscale modeling. In general terms,

Dispersion in porous media is a relevant transport pro-
cess that is determinant in many practical situations. For
example, the knowledge of dispersion allows predicting
the fate of contaminants in groundwater flows (Chap. 10
in Bear, 1972; Chap. 7 in Bear and Cheng, 2010) CO2
sequestration (Dentz and Tartakovsky, 2009; Liu, 2009),
enhanced oil recovery (see Chap. 3 in Alvarado and Man-
rique, 2010), spreading of nuclear wastes (cf. Chap. 8
in Harrington, 2010; Noyes, 1996), among many others.
Dispersion of a solute (species A) in a porous medium
involves the coupled mechanisms of diffusion and con-
vection at the pore scale (i.e., the microscale). These phe-
nomena are not easy to model due to the complex pore ge-
ometry. Therefore, upscaling techniques are used to sys-
tematically reduce the number of degrees of freedom as-
the upscaling efforts reported in the literature can be clas-
sified in two categories:
• Stochastic approaches. Here the porous medium is
regarded as a bundle of pores and their geome-
try is determined by probabilistic distribution func-
tions (Cushman et al., 2002; de Josselin de Jong,
1958; Greenkorn and Kessler, 1970; Haring and
Greenkorn, 1970; Hu et al., 2002; Neuman and
Tartakovsky, 2009; Saffman, 1959). This approach,
which based on the probability of a given marked
fluid particle to pass through a given pore, is pro-
portional to the volumetric flow rate. In some works,
the method of moments (Aris,1956; Brenner, 1980,
1982; Carbonell, 1979) is used to determine the dis-
persion coefficient. A drawback of this approach

1091–028X/13/$35.00 °
c 2013 by Begell House, Inc. 29
30
is that the simulations (using, for example, lattice-
Boltzmann or Monte Carlo techniques) are highly
computationally demanding due to the complexity of
the geometry.
• Deterministic approaches. Here the equations valid
at the pore scale (i.e., the solute continuity equa-
tion and the Navier-Stokes equations for momen-
tum transport) are averaged over a representative el-
ementary volume (REV) (see p. 20 in Bear, 1972).
The averaging process by itself does not result in
a reduction in the number of degrees of freedom
involved in the smaller scale. To overcome this is-
sue, a set of time- and length-scale constraints and
assumptions, in the form of scaling laws (Wood,
2009), are adopted. Many techniques have been em-
ployed in this approach, such as homogenization
(Bensoussan et al., 1978; Hornung, 1996; Sanchez-
Palencia, 1980), multiple-scale expansions (Auri-
ault and Adler, 1995), volume averaging (Whitaker,
1999), and thermodynamically constrained averag-
ing theory (Gray and Miller, 2005), among others.
Despite the intrinsic differences among the methods,
they involve a closure scheme from which the effec-
tive transport coefficients can be computed.
The results from the above theoretical approaches have
been corroborated by comparisons with several experi-
mental data (Delgado, 2006). Both theoretical and exper-
imental results can be represented in terms of the particle
Péclet number (Pep ),
µ ¶
khvγ iγ kdp εγ
Pep = (1)
Dγ 1 − εγ
where khvγ iγ k is the norm of the intrinsic averaged ve-
locity [defined in Eq. (5)], dp is the particle diameter, Dγ
is the molecular diffusion coefficient, and εγ is the vol-
ume fraction of the fluid phase within the REV.
In Table 1 we summarize some expressions for predict-
ing the longitudinal dispersion coefficient (i.e., the com-
ponent in the main flow direction) Dxx , reported in the lit-
erature. It is interesting to notice that almost all the equa-
tions summarized in Table 1 have a polynomial structure.
However, since some of those results arise from a statisti-
cal fit of laboratory or numerical experiments, a justifica-
tion for such polynomial structure is in order.
In this work we use the method of volume averaging
(Whitaker, 1999) to carry out the upscaling process of the
microscale equations for dispersion in porous media. A
thorough explanation of the averaging process has been
Lugo-Méndez, Valdés-Parada, & Ochoa-Tapia
already reported in the literature for both creeping (Eid-
sath et al., 1983; Whitaker, 1999) and potential (Wood,
2007) flows. However, the computation of the disper-
sion tensor has been typically carried out using numeri-
cal methods; this approach leads to predictions that are
statistically fitted in order to obtain a relation between
this coefficient and the particle Péclet number (see, for
example, Section 5 in Wood, 2007). Furthermore, ac-
cording to Ochoa-Tapia et al. (1994), for certain non-
periodic geometries the closure problems can be analyt-
ically solved. These geometries are referred to as Chang’s
unit cell (Chang, 1982, 1983). This type of unit cell con-
sists of one nonperiodic geometrical object, representing
the solid phase, contained in a homothetic object. The so-
lution of closure problems in Chang’s unit cell has been
limited to passive (Ochoa-Tapia et al., 1991, 1994; Wood
and Whitaker, 1999, 2011) and reactive mass diffusion
and heat conduction (Ochoa-Tapia et al., 1994) in porous
media, but it can certainly be extended to other transport
situations.
The objective of this work is to derive an analytical
expression for the total dispersion tensor for passive mass
transport in porous media using the method of volume av-
eraging considering Chang’s unit cell for creeping flow.
To this end, the work is organized as follows: In Section 2
we present the governing equations at the microscale and
at the macroscale, including the definitions of the effec-
tive transport coefficients in terms of the so-called clo-
sure variables. These variables are defined by a boundary-
value problem, which is analytically solved in Section 3.
The predictions arising from the resulting expressions for
the components of the dispersion tensor are compared
with those from numerically solving the closure problem
in periodic unit cells in Section 4. Finally, the correspond-
ing conclusions are provided in Section 5.
2. UPSCALING
2.1 Microscale Formulation
In this section we summarize the upscaling process of the
microscale governing equations for passive dispersion of
a solute (species A) in a porous medium using the method
of volume averaging (see Chap. 3 in Whitaker, 1999 for
details). With this aim, let us consider a rigid porous
medium, such as the one sketched in Fig. 1, which is sat-
urated with an incompressible and Newtonian fluid (i.e.,
the γ-phase), under isothermal conditions, that carries a
passive solute (species A). In this way, the governing dif-
ferential equation for mass transport at the pore-scale is
Journal of Porous Media
Dispersion in Porous Media Using Chang’s Unit Cell 31

TABLE 1: Summary of models to predict the longitudinal dispersion coefficient, Dxx /Dγ
Characteristics Dxx /Dγ Restriction Reference
Bundle of capillary
Aris (1956)
tubes of length L 1 + [(Pe2 )/48] 6.9 ¿ Pe ¿ (4L)/(a)
Taylor (1953, 1954)
and radius a
Random interconnected
network of capillary tubes (Pe)/(6)[ln3/2Pe) – 1/4] Pe ¿ 8 (a/L)2 Saffman (1959)
of length L, and radius a
Packed bed of sand 8.8Pe1.17 , εγ = 0.34 0.5 < Pe Blackwell et al. (1959)∗
Cubic array of spheres (a ),
0.7Pe1.2
p , εγ = 0.48
a
Gunn and Pryce
and random packing 1 ≤ Pep
εγ = 0.37b (1960)∗
of spheres (b )
Unconsolidated sand 0.701 + 1.75Pe,
2 < Pe < 102 Perkins (1963)∗
of bead packs εγ = 0.40
1 + 0.57Pep + 0.033Pe2p ,
Array of parallel pores Pep < 102 Carbonell (1979)
εγ = 0.40
In-line array of cylinders 0.7Pe1.7
p , εγ = 0.37 10 ≤ Pep Eidsath et al. (1983)
Staggered arrays of cylinders 0.174Pe1.76
p , εγ = 0.40 10 ≤ Pe Edwards et al. (1991)
1.66
Hexagonal arrays of cylinders 0.032Pep , εγ = 0.40 10 ≤ Pe Edwards et al. (1991)
Sahraoui and
In-line array of cylinders 0.048Pe1.71
p , εγ = 0.50 10−2 ≤ Pep ≤ 103
Kaviany (1994)
Sahraoui and
Staggered array of cylinders 0.018Pe1.26
p , εγ = 0.50 10−2 ≤ Pep ≤ 103
Kaviany (1994)
Buyuktas and
In-line array of discs 0.0267Pe1.854
p , εγ = 0.52 10 ≤ Pep
Wallender (2004)
Buyuktas and
Random array of discs 0.0924Pe1.356
p , εγ = 0.65 10 ≤ Pep
Wallender (2004)
2
Structured cubic 0.719 + 0.0345Pe ,
0.2 ≤ Pe ≤ 3000 Freund et al. (2005)
sphere array εγ = 0.48
0.690 + 0.303Pe1.21 ,
Freund et al. (2005);
Randomly packed εγ = 0.40; 5 ≤ Pe ≤ 300 Koch and Brady
fixed beds 1 + 3/8Pe + π2 /12(1 – εγ )
(1985)
Pe ln (Pe/2)
2/(3 – εγ ) + 0.22Pe1.17
p ,
In-line array of spheres Pep < 5000 Wood (2007)
εγ = 0.38
Glass of bead packs 0.63 + 0.077Pe1.2 , εγ = 0.40 10−2 ≤ Pe < 104 Alkindy et al. (2010)∗
µ ¶
∗ khvγ iγ k`γ khvγ iγ kdp εγ
Refers to experimental works; Pe = ; Pep =
Dγ Dγ 1 − εγ

Volume 16, Number 1, 2013

32 Lugo-Méndez, Valdés-Parada, & Ochoa-Tapia

`γ ¿ r0 ¿ L (4)

where `γ and L are the characteristic length scales asso-

ciated to the microscale and the macroscale, respectively.
For example, `γ can be conceived as the diameter of a
single pore, whereas L can be taken as the width of the
saturation zone in an aquifer (Bear, 1972). In terms of
the REV, one may introduce an intrinsic averaging op-
erator, applied to a piecewise smooth property defined
everywhere in the γ-phase, ψγ , as
Z
γ 1
hψγ i = ψγ dζ(yγ ) (5)
Vγ
yγ ∈Vγ

where Vγ is the domain occupied by the γ-phase within

the REV, yγ is a vector that locates points in the γ-phase,
and ζ is a dummy integration variable. Application of the
averaging operator to Eq. (2) gives rise to the following
FIG. 1: Averaging domain and characteristic lengths of expression
the system.
∂hcAγ iγ γ
+ h∇ · NAγ i = 0 (6)
∂t
∂cAγ
+ ∇ · NAγ = 0, in the γ-phase (2) Notice that spatial integration and temporal differentia-
∂t
tion have been interchanged in order to obtain the first
where the total molar flux is composed by the convection term on the left-hand side of the above result. This is
and molecular diffusion contributions, i.e., possible under the assumption that the porous medium is
NAγ = cAγ vγ − Dγ ∇cAγ (3) rigid. Furthermore, in order to interchange spatial differ-
entiation and integration we use the spatial averaging the-
Here we have assumed that the solute is sufficiently dilute orem (Howes and Whitaker, 1985) so that Eq. (6) takes
in the fluid, so that Fick’s law is applicable with Dγ be- the form
ing the constant molecular diffusion coefficient. For the
sake of simplicity, the solid matrix is assumed imperme- ∂hcAγ iγ γ 1
+ ∇ · hNAγ i +
able to mass transfer. The velocity field is obtained by ∂t V γ
Z
solving the continuity and Navier-Stokes equations, sub-
ject to the non slip-condition at the solid-fluid interface. It × nγκ · NAγ dξ(yγ ) = 0 (7)
is stressed that the solution of the microscale formulation y γ ∈A γκ

in the whole macroscopic domain is beyond the scope of

this work. Our interest lies in systematically filtering the in the above ξ is a dummy integration variable. Since the
nonredundant information from the microscale in order to solid phase is assumed impermeable to mass transfer, the
derive effective medium equations by using the method of last term on the left-hand side of the above expression is
volume averaging. zero. Furthermore, on the basis of Eq. (3) we have that
γ γ γ
hNAγ i = hcAγ vγ i − Dγ h∇cAγ i (8)
2.2 Effective Medium Equations
In order to spatially smooth the governing equations at the To further develop this result, let us decompose the con-
microscale, let us introduce an averaging domain, V (see centration and velocity fields into their volume averages
Fig. 1), or REV with measure V (p. 20 in Bear, 1972),
γ
and spatial deviations (i.e., ψγ = hψγ i + ψ e γ ; ψγ =
(p. 8 in Whitaker, 1999). The characteristic size of V , r0 , cAγ , vγ ) in the first term and use again the spatial av-
is typically constrained by the following relation eraging theorem for the second term to obtain

Journal of Porous Media

Dispersion in Porous Media Using Chang’s Unit Cell 33

γ γ γ
hNAγ i = hcAγ iγ hvγ i + he eγ i
cAγ v Here α is a third-rank tensor, usually known as disper-
  sivity. As mentioned above, the effective medium coef-
Z
 γ 1  ficients can be defined in terms of the so-called closure
− Dγ ∇ hcAγ i + nγκ e
cAγ dξ(yγ ) (9) variable, bγ , as follows
Vγ
yγ ∈Aγκ  
In writing this result we have assumed that the porous  Z 
 1 
medium is homogeneous, so that the spatial variations of  
Deff = Dγ I + nγκ bγ dξ(yγ ) (15a)
the fluid volume fraction are negligible. In addition, the  Vγ 
volume-averaged fields have been regarded as constants  yγ ∈Aγκ 
| {z }
within volume and surface integrals. This is reasonable on diffusive filter
the basis of the separation of length scales given in (4).
Finally, the fields of the deviation fields are constrained Dγ (1 − εγ )Pep
by the following expression α · hvγ iγ = − he
vγ bγ iγ = −
| {z } dp εγ
γ γ
he
cAγ i = 0; he
vγ i = 0 (10) convective filter
¿ Àγ
veγ
The following step in the analysis is to derive expres- × γ bγ (15b)
sions for the deviation fields in terms of their volume- k hvγ i k
averaged counterparts. This process is known as closure where v eγ are the velocity deviations, i.e., v
eγ = vγ −
and it involves the following steps: (i) subtraction of the γ
hvγ i . For convenience we have expressed Eq. (15b)
volume-averaged expression [Eq. (7)] to its point coun- in terms of the particle Péclet number. Note that we
terpart [Eq. (2)]; (ii) imposition of assumptions based on have highlighted the integral filters of information from
the separation of length and time scales between the mi- the microscale corresponding to diffusion and convec-
croscale and the macroscale and (iii) formal solution of tion. A discussion about the roles played by these fil-
the resulting boundary-value problem. These steps are de- ters is available from Valdés-Parada (2011). In addi-
tailed in Section 3.3 of Whitaker (1999); it suffices here tion, the effects of tortuosity and dispersion on the ef-
to write the closure-problem solution, which is given by fective thermal conductivity in porous media are avail-
e
cAγ = bγ · ∇hcAγ i γ
(11) able from Yang and Nakayama (2010). Indeed, due to
the scaling laws involved in the derivation of Eq. (13)
where bγ is a vector that maps the macroscopic fields (see, for example, Wood, 2009), the use of this equa-
onto the concentration deviations. Substitution of Eq. (11) tion is constrained to the homogeneous regions of the
into Eq. (9) yields system. In this context we refer to a homogeneous re-
γ γ gion as a portion of the system where volume-averaged
hNAγ i = hcAγ iγ hvγ i
  properties (e.g., εγ , D∗γ ) are position-invariant (Quin-
Z tard and Whitaker, 1987). This means that the effective
 1 
− D γ I + nγκ bγ dξ(yγ ) − hbγ v e γ iγ  medium equations are not valid near the boundaries of
Vγ the porous medium. It should be stressed that it is not
yγ ∈Aγκ
γ
common to find natural porous media that are homoge-
· ∇ hcAγ i (12) neous at the bulk. Nevertheless, the equations here de-
The first term of this result represents convection and the rived can still be applied in these systems as long as
second one was associated with dispersion by Whitaker the length-scale constraints are met. Of course this is
(1999). In this way, Eq. (7) takes the form true as long as the involved physicochemical parame-
ters can be considered as constants. In addition, there
∂hcAγ iγ γ γ ∗ γ have been other works that have discussed the applica-
+∇·(hvγ i hcAγ i ) = ∇·(Dγ ·∇hcAγ i ) (13)
∂t bility range of local macroscopic equations, identifying
where Dγ is the total dispersion tensor, which is defined also constraints on the physics of the process (e.g., Auri-
∗

as the sum of the effective diffusivity, Deff , and the hydro- ault and Adler, 1995; Battiato et al., 2009; Mikelić et al.,
dynamic dispersion, this is, 2006).
From Eqs. (15a) and (15b) we observe that the com-
D∗γ = Deff + α · hvγ iγ (14) putation of the effective medium coefficients requires

Volume 16, Number 1, 2013

34 Lugo-Méndez, Valdés-Parada, & Ochoa-Tapia

taking surface and volume integrals of the fields of the

closure variable bγ introduced in Eq. (11). From the
closure-problem derivation provided by Whitaker (1999)
we find that bγ solves the following boundary-value
problem,
k-phase
eγ + vγ · ∇bγ = Dγ ∇2 bγ ,
v in the γ-phase (16a)

−nγκ · Dγ ∇bγ = nγκ Dγ , at Aγκ (16b) l lk

bγ (r + li ) = bγ (r), i = 1, 2, 3 (16c)
in a periodic unit cell [see, for example, Fig. 2(a)] as
indicated by Eq. (16c). In this way, it is necessary to g-phase
solve Eqs. (16) in order to compute the components of
the total dispersion tensor. The numerical solution of (a)
this problem was first carried out by Eidsath (1983) for
creeping flow. In addition, Wood (2007) recently revis-
ited the solution of this closure problem without neglect-
ing the inertial effects in the momentum transport equa- g-phase
tions. Our goal in this work is to analytically solve the
closure problem in Chang’s unit cell [see Fig. 2(b)]. For
the discussion that follows, it is worth noticing that for
the periodic unit cell in Fig. 2(a), the porosity can be b
(x1e, x2e)
easily calculated to be εγ = 1 − `3κ /`3 , whereas for a
Chang’s unit cell we have εγ = 1 − a3 /b3 . In this
way, one obtains that `κ /` = a/b. In Chang’s unit k-phase
cell, the periodic boundary condition [Eq. (16c)] is re-
placed by the homogeneous Dirichlet-type boundary con-
dition,
bγ = 0, at Aγe (17)
where Aγe denotes the external surface of the unit cell. (b)
The above Dirichlet-type boundary condition is certainly
FIG. 2: Sketch of (a) a periodic unit cell and (b) Chang’s
a particular case of the original periodic condition. The
unit cell.
justification for this condition is twofold: Firstly a con-
stant is the simplest type of a periodic function, hence
if any constant can satisfy the periodic boundary condi-
tion, a null function can indeed be adopted. Secondly, a Z
(1 − εγ ) veγ
Dirichlet-type boundary condition is appealing from the bγ = −Pep γ G (x, x0 )dV (x0 )
dp εγ k hvγ i k
point of view of convergence of the closure-problem so- x0 ∈Vγ
lution. In addition, the fact that the closure variable is set Z
to zero at Aγe physically means that the concentration + G (x, x0 )nγκ dA(x0 ) (18)
deviations are also zero at this boundary. x0 ∈Aγκ

3. ANALYTICAL SOLUTION OF THE CLOSURE

PROBLEM
Using standard, integral-equation formulations based
upon Green’s functions, it can be shown that the formal
solution of the closure problem is (Greenberg, 1971)
where bγ is one of the scalar components of the closure
vector bγ and G (x, x0 ) is the associated Green’s func-
tion. Since this is a convection-diffusion equation, the
Green’s function can be written in the form of the con-
volution product (see Appendix for the demonstration)

Journal of Porous Media

Dispersion in Porous Media Using Chang’s Unit Cell 35

x∗
1Z=x1e 1
gn (r, r0 ) =
G (x, x0 ) = − µ(x1 , x∗1 , x2 ) nan−1 b−n−1 + (n + 1) a−n−2 bn
 £ n−1 −n−1 ¤
x∗
1 =x1 
 na r0 + (n + 1) a−n−2 r0n

 £ ¤
∂G ∗ 
 × b−n−1 rn − bn r−n−1
× (x , x2 ; x01 , x02 ) dx∗1 (19) 



∂x∗1 1 

 r0 6 r
with µ(x1 , x∗1 , x2 ) being the integrating factor, that for a × £ n−1 −n−1 ¤ (23)

 na r + (n + 1) a−n−2 rn


bidimensional flow, is given by 
 × £b−n−1 rn − bn r−n−1 ¤


" 
 0 0


(1 − εγ ) 
µ(x1 , x∗1 , x2 ) = exp − Pep r 6 r0
εγ
y1 =x ∗
# In the above expression, a and b represent the radii of
Z 1 /dp
vγ1 the inner and outer spheres in Chang’s unit cell as shown
× γ (y1 , x2 )h1 (y1 , x2 ) dy1 (20) in Fig. 2(b). In order to obtain Eq. (23) we used Fourier
k hvγ i k
y1 =x1 /dp series expansions in the spherical harmonics (Greenberg,
1971).
The solution given by Eq. (18) is in agreement with the
steady-state version of Eq. (51) in Wood (2007). Notice
that the Green’s function A1 proposed by Wood (2007) 4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
using the finite Fourier transform is decomposed into a 4.1 Analytical Expression for Dispersion
volume and superficial integrals in Eq. (18). In addition,
it is interesting to notice that the Green’s function associ- Since we have obtained an analytical solution for the clo-
ated with the convection-diffusion equation, G , is the con- sure variable bγ , our next step in the analysis is to sub-
volution product of the integrating factor, involving the stitute this result into the definition of the total disper-
velocity field, and the derivative of another Green’s func- sion tensor [i.e., the sum of Eqs. (15a) and (15b)]. After
tion, G, that solves the following boundary-value problem performing some algebraic steps, the resulting expression
for the longitudinal (i.e., in the direction of the flow rate)
∗
Dγ ∇2 G = δ(x − x0 ), in the γ-phase (21a) component of the total dispersion tensor, Dλλ , is
∗
Dλλ
= A2 Pe2p + A1 Pep + A0 (24)
−nγκ · Dγ ∇G = 0, at Aγκ (21b) Dγ

where the coefficients A0 , A1 , and A2 are the (convective

and diffusive) filters of information from the microscale
G = 0, at Aγe (21c)
[see Eqs. (15a) and (15b)], and are given by
Notice that G is the kernel of the solution of a differ- Z Z
1
ential equation involving a diffusion operator in Chang’s A 0 (Pep ) = 1 − G (y, y0 ) nγκ0
Vγ
unit cell. The analytical solution of Eqs. (21) can be ob- y∈Aγκ y0 ∈Aγκ
tained using a Fourier series in the spherical harmonics × eλ0 dA (y0 ) nγκ · eλ dA (y) (25a)
for axisymmetric domains,
∞ 
1X Z Z
G (r, θ; r0 , θ0 ) = gn (r, r0 ) Pn (cos θ) 1  1
2 n=0 A1 (Pep ) = −  H (y, y0 )dV (y0 )
Vγ D γ
× Pn (cos θ0 ) (22) y∈Aγκ y0 ∈Vγ

Z Z
and gn (r, r0 ) are the Green’s functions associated with 
× dA (y) + H (y0 , y)dA (y0 )dV (y) (25b)
the Sturm-Liouville problem in the radial direction and
can be written as y∈Vγ y0 ∈Aγκ

Volume 16, Number 1, 2013

36 Lugo-Méndez, Valdés-Parada, & Ochoa-Tapia

Z Z
1 4.2 Solution Evaluation
A2 (Pep ) = ṽλ (y) ṽλ (y0 )
Vγ Dγ
y∈Vγ y0 ∈Vγ In order to test the capabilities of the expression for dis-
× G (y, y0 ) dV (y0 ) dV (y) persion given by Eq. (30), we compared the predictions
(25c)
resulting from Chang’s unit cell (which is a nonperiodic
In Eq. (25b) we introduced model of the porous medium geometry) with periodic unit
H (y, y0 ) = G (y, y0 ) ṽλ (y0 ) nγκ · eλ |y (26) cells in two and three dimensions. In Fig. 3 we plot the de-
pendence of the longitudinal dispersion with the particle
Due to the complexity to solve the integrals involved Péclet number for a given porosity value (εγ = 0.37). The
in A1 and A2 , they were carried out numerically us- predictions have been obtained by evaluating Eq. (30) and
ing robust integration schemes, i.e., Simpson quadratures. by numerically solving the closure problem [Eqs. (16)]
However, for A0 we were able to obtain the following ex- in periodic homothetic (i.e., in line squares and cubes)
pression for the spherical Chang’s unit cell, and nonhomothetic (i.e., in line cylinders and spheres)
 ∗  unit cells in two and three dimensions. The numerical
Z Z xZ1 =b
2 1  ∂µ 
A0 = +  ∗ Gdx∗1 
3 − εγ Vγ ∂x1
y∈Aγκ y0 ∈Aγκ x∗
1 =x1

× nγκ0 · eλ0 dA (y0 ) nγκ · eλ dA (y) (27) 104

Notice that the first term on the right-hand side of the 103
(Dγ∗ )xx /Dγ
above expression corresponds to the classical result by
Maxwell (1881). To be more explicit about the depen-
102
dence of the above result with the particle Péclet num-
ber, let us take the derivative of the integrating factor µ
101
with respect to x∗1 and substitute it in the integral term of
Eq. (27) to obtain
100 a)
2
A0 = + α0 Pep (28)
3 − εγ 10−1 −1
10 100 101 102 103
where, for the sake of simplicity, we introduced
P ep
Z Z xZ∗
1 =b µ ¶
1 vγ1 x∗1
α0 = − , x2
Vγ Pep Dγ dp 104
y∈Aγκ y0 ∈Aγκ x∗
1 =x1
µ ¶
x∗1 103
× h1 , x2 µGdx∗1 nγκ0 · eλ0 dAnγκ · eλ dA (29)
(Dγ∗ )xx /Dγ

dp
The relevance of Eq. (28) is that we have been able to iso-
102
late the purely diffusive contribution from the dispersion
part. In this way, we can rewrite Eq. (24) as 101
∗
Dλλ Def f 100
= + αPep (30) b)
Dγ Dγ
where the longitudinal dispersivity is given by 10−1 −1
10 100 101 102 103
α = α0 + A1 + A2 Pep (31) P ep
which depends, in a nonsimple manner, on the particle FIG. 3: Comparison of the predictions of the longitudinal
Péclet number, due to the integrating factor involved in component of the total dispersion tensor using Chang’s
the definitions of α0 , A1 , and A2 [see Eqs. (25b), (25c), unit cell with (a) 2D and (b) 3D periodic unit cells taking
and (27)]. e.g., = 0.37.

Journal of Porous Media

Dispersion in Porous Media Using Chang’s Unit Cell
solutions of the closure problem were performed using
the commercial software Comsol Multiphysics, involv-
ing adaptive mesh refinements algorithms, in order to en-
sure that the results are independent of the number of
computational nodes. The numerical scheme consisted on
first solving the Stokes’ equations in the unit cell sub-
ject to a determined pressure gradient, in order to de-
termine the velocity fields as well as the velocity devi-
ations, veγ . These data are inserted into the convection-
diffusion equation, Eq. (16a), to determine the closure
variable fields and hence the dispersion coefficient [see
Eqs. (15a) and (15b)].
From the results displayed in Fig. 3, we observe that
dimensionality plays a relevant role, since the analytical
solution exhibits a better agreement with 3D-unit cells, as
expected. Interestingly, the results from Chang’s unit cell
are closer to those obtained with a periodic unit cell in-
corporating a cubic obstacle rather than a spherical one.
This leads us to conclude that the predictions resulting
from Chang’s unit cell are expected to closely reproduce
those from homothetic periodic unit cells. In fact, the
differences with respect to the nonhomothetic cases in-
crease with the particle Péclet number. In other words,
the influence of the microscale geometry in the unit cell
is expected to be more plausible as the Péclet number in-
creases. To overcome this issue, it is advisable to use more
realistic unit cells for the closure-problem solution. How-
ever, the price to be paid for this improvement is the im-
possibility to obtain an analytical expression for the dis-
persion coefficient, which was the objective of this work.
A comparison between experimental data and numerical
solutions of the closure problem for thermal dispersion in
porous media is available from Kuwahara et al. (1996).
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this work we have derived an analytical expression
for the longitudinal dispersion coefficient in homoge-
neous porous media for creeping flow conditions, under
a volume-averaging framework. This work is motivated
by the several heuristic and rigorously derived expres-
sions for dispersion reported in the literature (see Table 1), ours is not a fully analytical solution, since the integrals
which suggest that this coefficient exhibits a power-law
functionality with the particle Péclet number, Pep . The
main contribution of this work is precisely a theoretical
justification for such dependency [see Eq. (24)].
In order to derive the analytical expression for the dis-
persion coefficient, we have solved the associated closure
problem, in Chang’s unit cell, using an integral equation Alkindy, A., Al-Wahaibi, Y., Bijeljic, B., and Muggeridge, A.,
formulation based upon Green’s functions. A salient fea-
Volume 16, Number 1, 2013
37
ture of our developments is that the Green’s functions for
the passive convection-diffusion problem are expressed as
the convolution product of an integrating factor (which
captures the convective effects) and another Green’s func-
tion that solves a Poisson-type problem [that captures the
diffusive contribution; see Eq. (19)].
It is interesting to notice that Chang’s unit cell, aside
from being a nonperiodic model of the porous medium
geometry, involves imposing a homogeneous Dirichlet-
type boundary condition at the external surface of the
unit cell. The effects of this condition have been previ-
ously shown to be unimportant in the prediction of the ef-
fective diffusion and conduction coefficients in homoge-
neous porous media (Ochoa-Tapia et al., 1994). However,
it is not hard to imagine that the same benefits should not
be present in the case of dispersion. Nevertheless, in this
work we have used the well-known analytical expressions
for velocity around a sphere in an unbounded domain, un-
der creeping flow conditions. Since, for high flow rates,
the velocity is the driving term in the closure-problem
solution, we found that the Dirichlet condition is again
not determinant in the accuracy of the predictions result-
ing from Chang’s unit cell. It is worth stressing that the
derivations in this work have been constrained to a spher-
ical Chang’s unit cell; however, as shown by Ochoa-Tapia
et al. (1994), this type of unit cell can certainly be ex-
tended to more complicated geometries (e.g., prolate and
oblate coordinates).
A salient feature of our derivations is that we were
able to rewrite the power-law-type expression, given by
Eq. (24), in a form where diffusive effects can be isolated
from hydrodynamic dispersion, see; Eq. (30). Our com-
parisons with the numerical predictions from periodic unit
cell models show that dimensionality is certainly an im-
portant issue, as well as the homothetic nature of the unit
cell.
Finally, it is worth stressing that the derivation of an-
alytical solutions for effective medium coefficients is in-
deed a worthwhile task that should be exploited in further
detail due to the practicality and physical meaning that
they provide. Certainly, it is pertinent to emphasize that
in Eqs. (25) had to be solved numerically. Nevertheless,
its value surely surpasses the one corresponding to a sta-
tistical or heuristic fit of an isolated set of data.
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Dγ ∇ϕ = bγ vγ , in the γ-phase (A6a)

Volume 16, Number 1, 2013

40 View publication stats Lugo-Méndez, Valdés-Parada, & Ochoa-Tapia

Dγ ∇ϕ = 0, at Aγe (A6b) ysis to bidimensional flow fields and introduce the stream
function, χ, so that
We note that in order to determine the fields of ϕ, it is
only necessary to account for the velocity field, whereas 1 ∂χ 1 ∂χ
v1 = , v2 = − (A9)
for wγ , the velocity deviations and ϕ are input sources. h2 h3 ∂x2 h1 h3 ∂x1
In other words, we may compute the fields of ϕ indepen-
where h1 = 1, h2 = r, and h3 = r sin θ are the scaling
dently of wγ ; however, the opposite is not true. However,
factors in spherical coordinates x1 and x2 . The velocity
from Eq. (A6) we have that ϕ is an arbitrary constant at
field is tangent to the stream line, i.e., ∇χ · vγ = 0. In
Aγe ; thus for simplicity we fix it to be zero, so that the
this way, application of the dot product of Eq. (A6a) with
problem for wγ becomes
∇χ yields
Dγ ∇2 wγ = veγ , in the γ-phase (A7a)
∇χ · ∇ϕ = 0, in the γ-phase (A10)

−nγκ · Dγ ∇wγ = nγκ Dγ , at Aγκ (A7b) From the above it is possible to express ϕ in terms of vγ
according to
1 ∂ϕ
wγ = 0, at Aγe (A7c) ∇ϕ = vγ (A11)
h1 v1 ∂x1
which corresponds to the boundary-value problem for bγ Substitution of ϕ = bλ − w and the above result into
without the convection term. The formal solution of this Eq. (A6a) leads to
problem is given by ∂bγ ∂wγ
Z Dγ − h1 v1 bγ = Dγ , in the γ-phase (A12)
1 ∂x1 ∂x1
wγ = − veγ G(x, yγ )dyγ
Dγ This equation is subject to the boundary condition in
yγ ∈Vγ
Z Eq. (17) at the outer surface of Chang’s unit cell. The
+ G(x, x0 )nγκ dx0 (A8) solution of Eq. (A11) can be easily obtained using the
x0 ∈Aγκ integrating factor method and can be written as follows
∗
x1Z=x1e
where G is the associated Green’s function, which solves
∂wγ
the boundary-value problem given by Eqs. (21) and the bγ (x1 , x2 ) = − µ(x1 , x∗1 , x2 ) ∗ (x∗1 , x2 )dx∗1 (A13)
∂x1
solution is provided in Eq. (22) for a spherical geometry. x∗
1 =x1
Nonetheless the closure variable bγ remains a function
of ϕ according to Eq. (A4). For this reason, we will de- The final step consists of substituting the formal solution
rive an expression for bγ that is only dependent on the wγ of wγ in the above expression, which gives rise to Eq. (18)
fields. Let us, for the sake of simplicity, constrain the anal- and this concludes the proof.

Journal of Porous Media