Effect of Surface Wettability on Nonlinear Flow in a Rough-Walled Fracture

The understanding of flow behavior in rock fractures is essential to the analysis of water flow, solute transport and DNAPL migration and remediation in rock fractures. DNAPL migration and remediation in rock fractures has been an emerging issue due to its serious contamination problem and the difficulty in dealing with DNAPL trapped in rock fractures. It has been reported that while DNAPL migrates through rock fractures, DNAPL may be trapped on rock surfaces due to variable apertures and dead-end fractures, and may also change the surface wettability of rock fractures from hydrophilic to hydrophobic. In this study, the effect of surface wettability on water flow in rock fractures has been investigated. A glass replica of a real rough-walled fracture was made, and the fracture surface was brushed with corn oil to make the fracture surface hydrophobic. The corn oil was wiped off with tissues many times, to eliminate the oil remnants on the surface. Flow tests were conducted on the oil-wet fracture surface. Then, the surface was completely washed out with the cleaning agents to make the fracture surface hydrophilic, which was confirmed through contact angle measurements. Flow tests were repeated for the water-wet fracture surface. Flow tests were also carried out for a parallel glass plate fracture over the same water- and oil-wet surface conditions as in the rough fracture. In the parallel plate fracture, the hydraulic aperture from the oil-wet surface was only two percent higher that that of the water-wet surface, which indicated that the initial aperture of the fracture might not decrease by the corn-oil coating. Both oil- and water-wet surfaces of the parallel plate showed a linear flow regime, up to Reynolds number of 400. In the case of the rough fracture, the hydraulic aperture of the oil-wet fracture surface was smaller than that of the water-wet fracture surface. For the water-wet fracture surface, the non-linear flow started at Reynolds number less than 30, but in case of the oil-wet fracture surface, the non-linear flow did not begin up to Reynolds number of 50. The hydrophobic surface of the rough-walled fracture, which is formed during the migration of NAPL through rock fractures, may cause the non-linear flow to begin at a higher Reynolds number, compared with the case of the water-wet fracture surface.