1.

4
The limitations of Darcy's law and non
-Darcy percolation
 big specific area. The Darcy’s law shows that the
pressure loss is entirely determined by the viscous
resistance which is consistent with the characteristic
that the porous medium has big specific area.
Its channel diameter has big varying range and it
has lots of branches, mergence and turnings, so
the inertia loss (local loss) is big.
The relationship between viscous loss and velocity is
direct ratio, while the relationship between inertia loss
and the second power of velocity is direct ratio.
 In fluid mechanics, the criterion judging the flow pattern
of flow is the Reynolds number Re. When studying whether
the fluids flow in porous media obey Darcy’s law, the
Reynolds number Re is also adopted. When the Reynolds
number reaches a certain value, the Darcy’s law loses
effectiveness.
It can be known from the knowledge of fluid mechanics ：
Re
 dv
 t


Where ：
 — density of liquid，kg/m3；
 — viscosity of liquid，Pa·s；
d —hydraulic diameter of porous media channel ，m；
vt —true velocity of liquid,m/s 。
 Although the above formula is got,
however, it is very difficult to measure the pore
diameter directly, so an ideal model is adopted
usually to compute the average channel
diameter.

(1) The geometry of the actual core and the

ideal model is the same;
(2) The ideal model consists of a cluster of
isodiametric capillary and pore volume of
actual core and the ideal model is equal;
(3)Under the same pressure difference, the
flow rate of liquid passing through actual core
and the ideal model is the same.
The diameter of capillary d meeting the
Figure 1-7 The actual above conditions of the ideal model is the
core and ideal model equivalent average diameter of formation pore.
 Under the condition of laminar flow, the rate of flow passing though a
：
single capillary tube is

 r p
4
/

q 
8L

Assuming that there are N capillary tubes in the unit cross section
of porous medium, and the total amount of the capillary is NA, then the
total rate of flow passing the ideal model is ：
q  NAq  N A
/
r
8L
4
p
（1-12）
Also from the equal of pore volume of the actual core and the ideal
model, the following equation can be obtained ：
N A r L   A L
2


N 
r
2
 Bring the equation above to the formula (1-12) , then ：
 A r p
（ ）
2

q 1-13
8L
While according to the Darcy’ s law, the rate of flow
passing though the actual core is ：
q
L

K A p
（1-14）
According to the assuming condition (3) , make the formula
(1-13) equals to formula (1-14) , then ：
r  d ） （
2 2
2K
K 
8 32
d 4 1-15 
Bring the formula (1-15) and v  into formula (1-11) , then：
v


（1-16）
t

or  
R 
 
e
4 2 10
3

3/2
（ 1-17）
v K
 The experiment proves that,
the critical value of Reynolds
Number is 0.2~0.3, and this
value has big difference with
the value 2320 in ordinary
hydromechanics and the
transitional range of the failure
of Darcy’ s law is very big (
Figure 1-8) , it also shows that
the main reason of the failure of
Darcy’ s law is not the
occurrence of turbulent flow,
but the increase of inertia loss. Figure 1-8 The relational diagram
of the Reynolds number and
resistance factor
 Many scholars are trying to find a law that takes both viscous loss and
inertia loss into consideration, and the Darcy’s law is treated as its special
case. The binomial percolation law is considered not only to think about
viscous loss but also inertia loss, and it is accepted generally as the
equation that can reflect the actual.

  b v （1-18）
2

g r a dp v
K
Where ： gradp—the pressure gradient，
b —a constant depending on the properties of porous medium
and is confirmed from experiment ；
 —the density of fluid.
The first item of the right part of formula ( 1-18) means viscous loss, and the
second item means inertia loss. When the percolation velocity is very small and
v≥v2, the binomial law will change to be the Darcy’ s law.
Sometimes, exponent percolation law is also used for the convenience of
mathematical handling.
  C ( g r a dp ) n  1  n  1 
2 
 The pores of low permeability
reservoir are very small, the thickness of
fluid adsorbed layer on the wall of pores
is as big as the size of pore, and the flow
resistance of adsorbed layer is much
bigger, so fluid is hard to flow when
pressure gradient is not big enough,
which causes low permeability reservoir
does not obey the Darcy’s law when
pressure gradient is very small. Only if
the pressure gradient reaches a certain
limit value (trigger pressure gradient) λ
in low permeability reservoir the Darcy’s
law is obeyed( Figure 1-9) , that is ： Figure 1-9 The relational diagram
of the percolation velocity and
pressure gradient

v 
K

 p   p   v 0