title: Hydraulic conductance and viscous coupling of three-phase layers in angular capillaries.
abstract: Predicting three-phase relative permeability by network models requires reliable models for hydraulic conductance of films and layers stabilized by capillary forces at the pore level. We solve the creeping flow approximation of the Navier-Stokes equation for stable wetting and intermediate layers in the corner of angular capillaries by using a continuity boundary condition at the layer interface. We find significant coupling between the condensed phases and calculate the generalized mobilities by solving cocurrent and countercurrent flow of wetting and intermediate layers. Finally, we present a simple heuristic model for the generalized mobilities as a function of the geometry and viscosity ratio.
authors.affiliation: Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, USA.
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Dehghanpour
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Aminzadeh
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: DiCarlo