Competition between correlated buoyancy and uncorrelated capillary effectsduring drainage

We study drainage in a horizontally oriented rough fracture joint filled wi th glass beads. The shape and structure of the drained areas is the result of competition between two effects: (1) variations in the capillary thresho lds necessary to be overcome in order to drain the pores and (2) the height variations due to the roughness of the fracture joint. These height variat ions have long range correlations due to the self-affine nature of the frac ture. The capillary thresholds are uncorrelated. We tune the relative stren gth of these two effects by performing experiments in a centrifuge and thus changing the "strength of gravity." As gravity is increased, the structure of the drained areas change from that of invasion percolation to a structu re composed of compact blobs linked together by threadlike links. We study both the geometry and the effect of trapping while changing acceleration of gravity from zero to 6g(0). At high centrifugal acceleration we further ob serve fragmentation, migration and coalescence of;bubbles of fluid inside t he drained areas. [S1063-651X(99)13112-X].