Title: The Mechanism behind Erosive Bursts in Porous Media,
Abstract: Erosion and deposition during flow through porous media can lead to large
erosive bursts that manifest as jumps in permeability and pressure loss. Here
we reveal that the cause of these bursts is the re-opening of clogged pores
when the pressure difference between two opposite sites of the pore surpasses a
certain threshold. We perform numerical simulations of flow through porous
media and compare our predictions to experimental results, recovering with
excellent agreement shape and power-law distribution of pressure loss jumps,
and the behavior of the permeability jumps as function of particle
concentration. Furthermore, we find that erosive bursts only occur for pressure
gradient thresholds within the range of two critical values, independent on how
the flow is driven. Our findings provide a better understanding of sudden sand
production in oil wells and breakthrough in filtration.