Modeling flow and pressure fields in porous media with high conductivity flow channels and smart placement of branch cuts for variant and invariant complex potentials

A long overdue distinction between so-called variant and invariant complex potentials is proposed here for the first time. Invariant complex potentials describe physical flows where a switch of the real and imaginary parts of the function will still describe the same type of physical flow (but only rotated by π/2). Such invariants can be formulated with Euler’s formula to depict the same flow for any arbitrary orientation with respect to the coordinate system used. In contrast, variant complex potentials, when swapping their real and imaginary parts, will result in two fundamentally different physical flows. Next, we show that the contour integrals of the real and imaginary part of simple variant and invariant complex potentials generally do not generate any discernable branch cut problems. However, complex potentials due to the multiple superpositions of simple flows, even when invariant, may involve many options for selecting the branch cut locations. Examples of such branch cut choices are given for so-called areal doublets and areal dipoles, which are powerful tools to describe the streamlines and pressure fields for flow in porous media with enhanced permeability flow channels. After a discussion of the branch cut solutions, applications to a series of synthetic and field examples with enhanced permeability flow channels are given with examples of the streamline and pressure field solutions.