Steam Condensation Waves in Water-Saturated Porous Rock

Johannes Bruining, Dan Marchesin, Stephen Schecter

Dedicated to Jorge Sotomayor on his 60th birthday

We formulate balance laws governing condensation of steam injected into a linear porous medium containing water. Heat losses to the outside are neglected. Longitudinal heat conduction and capillary effects are taken into account. The condensation process is modeled by a rate equation based on a simple heat-transfer model. We study the condensation front as a traveling wave, under the approximation that pressure variations are negligible within the front. We find this traveling wave for the case of injection of high-quality steam using a combination of phase-plane analysis and numerical calculation of orbits.