Multiphase Flow of Active Fluid: Role of Thermodynamic Instability in Enhanced Oil Recovery

The displacement of more viscous fluids by less viscous fluids in porous media provides not only an industrial application for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) from reservoirs, but also a fundamental study of the phase transition phenomena of fluids, combining fluid mechanics and thermodynamics. Recent studies have shown that the coupling of thermodynamic and hydrodynamic instabilities results in the formation of self-driven active fluid that significantly affects EOR. In this paper, we discuss the phase transition phenomena of the fluid in a porous medium simulating EOR from both hydrodynamic and thermodynamic aspects.