The characterization and the understanding of flow properties of rocks and granular media is a major issue in Earth Sciences and Physics, and in many industrial applications including CO2 sequestration, Hydrocarbon migration, geotechnique and soil remediation, ore deposit development, and radioactive waste disposal. One of the main problems is the understanding of fluid flow in transforming porous media, where the rocks and fluid pathways, veins and fractures, or a soil/water/air mixture evolve spatially and temporally, for example due to interaction with the flow, or due to compaction of the system, or due to chemical reaction between the fluid and the rock. The dynamic feedbacks between flow, destruction of permeability due to compaction or local precipitation, and creation of permeability due to fracturing or decompaction, makes understanding of such systems complex. Such feedbacks between flow of fluids and the porous media (PM) in which they are flowing, are important in both relatively slowly deforming PM such as reservoirs, and in very rapidly evolving porous media such as liquefying fluid-filled soils experiencing earthquakes or rapidly flowing grain-fluid mixtures in debris flows. In this session we welcome contributions from a range of fields including field observations, analytical considerations, numerical models and experiments.

Solicited Presentations:

Joachim Mathiesen et al., Niels Borh Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark:
Unstructured Lattice Boltzmann methods for efficient simulations of flow in complex porous media

Yves Méheust et al., Géosciences Rennes, University of Rennes I, France:
Local rheology of foams in porous media: intermittency and bubble fragmentation