Non-equilibrium in multiphase multicomponent flow in porous media: An evaporation example

In this paper, the influence of relaxing the local thermal and chemical equilibrium assumptions in multiphase, multicomponent flow in porous media is studied. In order to do so, balance equations allowing for the coupled description of thermal and chemical non-equilibrium are developed. The example application presented is taken from the field of evaporation from porous media. Necessary input parameters are obtained from an extended quasi-static three-dimensional pore-network model. These relations are put into a macro-scale model and simulations not employing local thermal and chemical equilibrium assumptions are conducted. The influence of the rate of heat and mass transfer on evaporation rates is shown and convergence of the model demonstrated.