Analysis and numerical approximation of Brinkman regularization of two-phase flows in porous media

We consider a system of nonlinear partial differential equations that arises in the modeling of two-phase flows in a porous medium. The phase velocities are modeled using a Brinkman regularization of the classical Darcy’s law. We propose a notion of weak solution for these equations and prove existence of these solutions. An efficient finite difference scheme is proposed and is shown to converge to the weak solutions of this system. The Darcy limit of the Brinkman regularization is studied numerically using the convergent finite difference scheme in two space dimensions as well as using both analytical and numerical tools in one space dimension. The results suggest that the Brinkman regularization may not approximate the accepted entropy solutions of the Darcy model and raise fundamental questions about the use of Brinkman type models in two-phase flows.