A pore-scale numerical model for flow through porous media

A pore-scale numerical model based on Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is described for modelling fluid flow phenomena in porous media. Originall y developed for astrophysics applications, SPH is extended to model incompr essible flows of low Reynolds number as encountered in groundwater flow sys tems. In this paper, an overview of SPH is provided and the required modifi cations for modelling flow through porous media are described, including tr eatment of viscosity, equation of state, and no-slip boundary conditions. T he performance of the model is demonstrated for two-dimensional flow throug h idealized porous media composed of spatially periodic square and hexagona l arrays of cylinders. The results are in close agreement with solutions ob tained using the finite element method and published solutions in the liter ature. Copyright (C) 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.