Permeability variation due to sand particles in an infiltration flow using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method

Abstract

Recent years, sanding phenomenon makes some problems in resource engineering field. One of the characteristic problems is that small sand particles flow in accumulating layer and close pores of the layer. When the pore closed, sand particles prevent fluids from flowing the pore. Because of that, fluid velocity and permeability decrease. This is big problem for efficient produce of resource, so it is wanted to understand the mechanism for solve the problem. In this paper, we researched the mechanism using simulation by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) method. As a result, we caught a phenomenon that sand particles close a big pore and fluid velocity decreased dynamically. We simulated in four models which has a difference of shape distribution of sand particles. We found that there is visible difference between permeability changing of these models and shape of sand particles is effective for permeability changing.