
Open access
Date
2012-10-19Type
- Journal Article
Citations
Cited null times in
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Cited 5 times in
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ETH Bibliography
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Abstract
Many resources, such as oil, gas, or water, are extracted from porous soils and their exploration is often shared among different companies or nations. We show that the effective shares can be obtained by invading the porous medium simultaneously with various fluids. Partitioning a volume in two parts requires one division surface while the simultaneous boundary between three parts consists of lines. We identify and characterize these lines, showing that they form a fractal set consisting of a single thread spanning the medium and a surrounding cloud of loops. While the spanning thread has fractal dimension 1.55 ± 0.03, the set of all lines has dimension 1.69 ± 0.02. The size distribution of the loops follows a power law and the evolution of the set of lines exhibits a tricritical point described by a crossover with a negative dimension at criticality. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000058374Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
Scientific ReportsVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
Nature Publishing GroupSubject
Theoretical physics; Statistical physics, thermodynamics and nonlinear dynamics; Scaling laws; Chemical engineeringOrganisational unit
03733 - Herrmann, Hans Jürgen (emeritus) / Herrmann, Hans Jürgen (emeritus)
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Citations
Cited null times in
Web of Science
Cited 5 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics