Renormalization group analysis of permeability upscaling (Q1305888)

The authors propose a general formulation for the effective fluid permeability of isotropically heterogeneous porous media. This formulation is valid for strong heterogeneity, the general permeability distributions as well as for media with impermeable zones. It is proved that the effective permeability is determined by the self-energy series of the permeability fluctuations at zero frequency. A renormalization group (RG) analysis is developed for isotropic lognormal media that provides the generalized perturbation ansatz to all orders. The authors also give an explicit RG estimate for the preasymptotic effective permeability.