Two-phase flows involving capillary barriers in heterogeneous porous media (Q924036)

The authors consider an incompressible and immiscible oil-water flow through \(\Omega=\cup\Omega_i\), where \(\Omega_i\) are finitely many polygonal domains in \(\mathbb R^n\). According to Darcy's law, this problem is governed by the equations \[ \begin{cases} \varphi_i\partial_tu_i(x,t)-\nabla\cdot(\eta_{o,i}(u_i(x,t))(\nabla p_{o,i}(x,t)-\rho_o g))& = 0\\ -\varphi_i\partial_tu_i(x,t)-\nabla\cdot(\eta_{w,i}(u_i(x,t))(\nabla p_{w,i}(x,t)-\rho_w g))& = 0\\ p_{o,i}(x,t)-p_{w,i}(x,t)& = \pi_i(u_i(x,t)),\end{cases} \] where \(u_i\in[0,1]\) is the oil saturation in \(\Omega_i\), \(\varphi_i\in[0,1]\) the porosity of \(\Omega_i\), \(\pi_i(u_i(x,t))\) the capillary pressure, and \(g\) the gravity acceleration. The indices \(o\) and \(w\) stand for the oil and water phase, respectively. Then \(p\) denotes the pressure, \(\eta\) the mobility, and \(g\) the density of the corresponding phase. Under additional assumptions on the model the pressure \(p\) can be considered as a function of \(u\). Ander assumptions on the given functions \(\eta\), \(\pi\), and on the initial data, the authors prove the existence of a generalized solution \(u\). In the one-dimensional case existence and uniqueness of a regular solution is shown provided the initial data are sufficiently smooth. The proof of the main result is based on a paper of the first author where the existence of a solution of associated approximate problems is shown.