Mortar coupling and upscaling of pore-scale models

Pore-scale models are becoming increasingly useful as predictive tools for modeling flow and transport in porous media. These models can accurately represent the 3D pore-structure of real media. Currently first-principles modeling methods are being employed for obtaining qualitative and quantitative behavior. Generally, artificial, simple boundary conditions are imposed on a model that is used as a stand-alone tool for extracting macroscopic parameters. However, realistic boundary conditions, reflecting flow and transport in surrounding media, may be necessary for behavior that occurs over larger length scales or including pore-scale models in a multiscale setting. Here, pore-scale network models are coupled to adjacent media (additional pore-scale or continuum-scale models) using mortars. Mortars are 2D finite-element spaces employed to couple independent subdomains by enforcing continuity of pressure and flux at shared boundary interfaces. While mortars have been used in the past to couple subdomains of different models, physics, and meshes, they are extended here for the first time to pore-scale models. The approach is demonstrated by modeling single-phase flow in coupled pore-scale models, but the methodology can be utilized to model dynamic processes and perform multiscale modeling in 3D continuum simulators for flow and transport.