Multiphase Flow in a Hele-Shaw Cell

Abstract

<p>The primary goal of this thesis is to explore the capabilities of MOOSE (Multiphysics</p><p>Object Oriented Simulation Environment) and LAMMPS (Large-scale Atomic/Molecular</p><p>Massively Parallel Simulator) and their potential to be coupled in order to simulate</p><p>multiphase flow in a Hele-Shaw cell. After formulating the Darcy-Richards multi-</p><p>phase flow equations for a finite element method application, I synthesized the nec-</p><p>essary particle-particle interactions from existing literature and implemented them</p><p>in LAMMPS. In addition, I created a parallelized C++ program to calculate the</p><p>particle packing field through the heavy employ of OpenMP. With the conclusion</p><p>of extensive testing suites for both LAMMPS and MOOSE, I developed a python</p><p>program which was used to mesh LAMMPS and MOOSE by acting as a translation</p><p>and book-keeping program. While the coupling scheme appears to function properly</p><p>in test cases, it fails to capture the full impact of the particles on the fluid system and</p><p>thus allows for penetration of the invading fluid into regions which ought to remain</p><p>unsaturated.</p>