Effective or equivalent properties of heterogeneous materials are average properties relating between the average fields in the governing equations. These properties may pertain to different physical processes and are widely investigated and applied in various disciplines. In flow through heterogeneous porous media, effective properties are useful for describing flow properties such as the permeability, relative permeability and capillary pressure. The methods and formulas obtained in investigations of effective properties can be used to simplify the complex flow problems, for instance in numerical upscaling techniques.
We are interested in analytical derivations of effective properties and developing methods for upscaling. We also use the upscaled properties to develop methods for property estimation based on experimental field measurements.
