Dissipative Particle Dynamics and other particle methods for multiphase fluid flow in fractured and porous media

Particle methods are less computationally efficient than grid based numerical solution of the Navier Stokes equation. However, they have important advantages including rigorous mass conservation, momentum conservation and isotropy. In addition, there is no need for explicit interface tracking/capturing and code development effort is relatively low. We describe applications of three particle methods: molecular dynamics, dissipative particle dynamics and smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The mesoscale (between the molecular and continuum scales) dissipative particle dynamics method can be used to simulate systems that are too large to simulate using molecular dynamics but small enough for thermal fluctuations to play an important role.