ABSTRACT

Energy transfer is a common phenomenon in nature,

more common in various engineering fields. It can

be reckoned that in the industries related to energy

consumption, especially those high energy consump-

tion ones, such as power, petrochemicals, construc-

tion materials, oil and so on, all of the various tech-

nology processes and driving process are powerfully

influenced by energy transfer situation of its produc-

tion processes or equipment. Therefore, the energy

transfer study direction must not deviate from the

requirement of engineering applications. At present,

the conducted energy transfer study in engineering is

mostly confined to the energy transfer process

emerged from a single potential field (temperature

field) alone, however, the energy transfer process of

multi-field cooperation occurred widely in nature

and engineering practice, and it should become one

of the main study directions of energy transfer

theory in the near future (Cheng et al. 2003). The

heat and mass transfer in oil reservoir porous media

mainly deals with the coupling of four factors, i.e.,

thermal, hydraulic, mechanics and chemical. Among

these factors, the changes in one process bound to

affect another process changes in different degree. In

fact, the multi-field coupling relation is the mutual

conversion of different energy forms, because any

form energy change will affect the distribution of the

other forms of energy. In addition to comply with

the general mass, momentum, and energy conserva-

tion law, the field quantity also must be enslaved to

Darcy Law, Newton Law of Viscosity, Fourier Law,

Fick Law of Diffusion and the other irreversible

phenomenological law, the cross-transport between

the irreversible process leads to coupling. The phe-

nomenological law of transmission study, with a

clear mechanism, a simple form and a vast area of

application, is a kind of study method which is suit-

able for engineering application. On the basis of ex-

ploring the relationship between power, resistance

and efficiency in the process of multi-field energy

transfer, the method can evaluate the reasonableness

of the process or distinguish its weak points from the

dynamic perspective and can provide some valuable

information for engineering application.