Darcy's law

Darcy's law

Darcy's law. Equation and notations

Darcy's law is the fundamental law of fluid motion in porous media published by Henry Darcy in 1856 .

Darcy's law has been applied successfully to determine the flow through permeable media since the early days of Petroleum Engineering.

Darcy's law History

Henry Darcy worked on the design of a filter large enough to process the Dijon towns daily water requirement .

By flowing water through the sand pack Darcy established that, for any flow rate, the velocity of the flow was directly proportional to the difference in manometric heights:

Darcy's law Equation

$q = -\frac{kA}{\mu} \frac{dP}{dL}$

Conditions

• Single fluid
• Steady stay flow
• Constant fluid compressibility
• Constant temperature

Inflow Equations Derivation

Derivation of the Linear and Radial Inflow Equations

Nomenclature

$A$ = cross-sectional area, cm²

$k$ = permeability, d

$L$ = length, cm

$P$ = pressure, atm

$q$ = flow rate, cm³/sec

Greek symbols

$\mu$ = Darcy's law fluid viscosity, cp

See Also

Darcy's law application in Petroleum Engineering Technology.