scholarly journals A Mechanistic Model for Relative Permeability of Gas and Water Flow in Hydrate‐Bearing Porous Media With Capillarity

2019 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 3414-3432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harpreet Singh ◽  
Nariman Mahabadi ◽  
Evgeniy M. Myshakin ◽  
Yongkoo Seol
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Water Flow ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Mechanistic Model

Gas/Water Flow in Porous Media in the Presence of Adsorbed Polymer: Experimental Study on Non-Darcy Effects

2007 ◽  
Vol 10 (04) ◽  
pp. 423-431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincent Blanchard ◽  
Didier Lasseux ◽  
Henri Jacques Bertin ◽  
Thierry Rene Pichery ◽  
Guy Andre Chauveteau ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Water Flow ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Gas Flow ◽  
Water Saturation ◽  
Polymer Adsorption ◽  
Polymer Layer ◽  
Inertial Effects ◽  
Adsorbed Polymer ◽  
Mean Pressure

Summary The objective of this paper is to report some experimental investigations on the effect of polymer adsorption on gas/water flow in non-Darcy regimes in homogeneous porous media, in contrast to previously available analyses focused mainly on the Darcy regime. Our investigation concentrates on gas flow either at low mean pressure, when Klinkenberg effects (or gas slippage) must be considered, or at high flow rates, when inertial effects are significant. The experimental study reported here consists of water and nitrogen injections into various silicon carbide model granular packs having different permeabilities. Experiments are carried out at different water saturations before and after polymer adsorption over flow regimes ranging from slip flow to inertial flow. In good agreement with previous works, in the Darcy regime, we observe an increase in irreducible water saturation and a strong reduction in the relative permeability to water, while the relative permeability to gas is slightly affected. At low mean pressure in the gas phase, the magnitude of the Klinkenberg effect is found to increase with water saturation in the absence of polymer, whereas for the same water saturation, the presence of an adsorbed polymer layer reduces this effect. In the inertial regime, a reduction of inertial effects is observed when gas is injected after polymer adsorption, taking into account water-saturation and permeability modifications. Experimental data are discussed according to hypotheses put forth to explain these effects. Consequences for practical use are also put under prospect. Introduction Water/oil or water/gas flows in porous media are strongly modified in the presence of an adsorbed polymer layer on the pore surface. Several studies, performed in the Darcy regime, showed a phenomenon of disproportionate permeability reduction (DPR). The relative permeability to water (krw) is reduced more than the relative permeability to gas (krg) or to oil (kro). Although this effect was observed over most of the water-soluble polymer/weak gel systems and rock materials, the origin of this effect is still controversial in the literature. Several physical processes have been put forth to explain the selective action of the polymer.Mennella et al. (1998) studied water/oil flows in the presence of an adsorbed polymer layer in random packs of monodisperse spheres. They concluded that the DPR was caused by a swelling/shrinking effect depending on the kind of fluid flowing throughout the packs. They also explained the DPR by pore-scale topological modification (pore-size reduction). Similar studies (Dawe and Zhang 1994; Sparlin and Hagen 1984) were carried out on different systems such as micromodels.Some authors (White et al. 1973; Schneider and Owens 1982; Nilsson et al. 1998) have interpreted the effect of polymer by assuming that a porous medium is composed of separate oil/water pore networks. With this representation, the DPR can be explained by the fact that water permeability is affected by the hydrosoluble polymer present in the pore network occupied by water, while oil permeability is not.Many studies attributed the DPR to a wall effect (Zaitoun and Kohler 1988, 2000; Barreau 1996; Zaitoun et al. 1998), which decreases the pore section accessible to water. The physical origin of this mechanism is adsorption—almost irreversible—on the solid surface. An adsorbed polymer layer on pore walls induces steric hindrance, lubrication effects, and wettability modification, all of which are in favor of a stronger reduction of water permeability than of oil permeability. The physical relevance of this mechanism was tested on numerical simulations at the pore scale (Barreau et al. 1997).Liang and Seright (2000), following Nilsson et al. (1998), proposed to complete the explanation of DPR by a "gel-droplet" model. In this scenario, gel droplets formed in pore bodies cause a higher pressure drop at the pore throat in the wetting phase than in the nonwetting one. These reported studies mainly have been dedicated to the polymer action on oil/water systems, and much less attention has been paid to gas/water flow. However, all available results in this last configuration lead to the same behavior, and the same type of physical explanation (wall effect) was proposed (Zaitoun and Kohler 1989; Zaitoun et al. 1991). If published results dealing with the effect of polymer on permeability reduction observed in the Darcy regime are quite numerous, very little work has been dedicated to the non-Darcy regimes. Elmkies et al. (2002) reported laboratory experimental data showing that adsorbed polymer on natural porous-media cores decreases the inertial effects during gas flow. In this paper, we focus our attention on the influence of adsorbed polymer on gas/water core flow in non-Darcy regimes. Gas injection was performed on unconsolidated cores having different permeabilities, at different water saturations, before and after polymer treatment, and at low mean pressure to investigate Klinkenberg effects, as well as at high flow rates, when inertial effects become important.

Experimental study of the effect of wettability on the relative permeability for air–water flow through porous media

2019 ◽  
Vol 120 ◽  
pp. 103091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto Beltrán ◽  
Dante Hernández-Díaz ◽  
Oscar Chávez ◽  
Armando García ◽  
Baltasar Mena ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Study ◽  
Porous Media ◽  
Water Flow ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Flow Through Porous Media ◽  
Flow Through

Gas-Water Flow Behaviour During Mutual Displacement in Porous Media

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-22
Author(s):  
Renyi Cao ◽  
Junjie Xu ◽  
Xiaoping Yang ◽  
Renkai Jiang ◽  
Changchao Chen
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Gas Storage ◽  
Fluid Distribution ◽  
Water Displacement ◽  
Phase Zone ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Flow Process ◽  
Single Well ◽  
Mutual Displacement

During oilfield development, there exist multi-cycle gas–water mutual displacement processes. This means that a cycling process such as water driving gas–gas driving water–water driving gas is used for the operation of injection and production in a single well (such as foam huff and puff in single well or water-bearing gas storage). In this paper, by using core- and micro-pore scales model, we study the distribution of gas and water and the flow process of gas-water mutual displacement. We find that gas and water are easier to disperse in the porous media and do not flow in continuous gas and water phases. The Jamin effect of the gas or bubble becomes more severe and makes the flow mechanism of multi-cycle gas–water displacement different from the conventional water driving gas or gas driving water processes. Based on experiments of gas–water mutual displacement, the changing mechanism of gas–water displacement is determined. The results indicate that (1) after gas–water mutual displacement, the residual gas saturation of a gas–water coexistence zone becomes larger and the two-phase zone becomes narrower, (2) increasing the number of injection and production cycles causes the relative permeability of gas to increase and relative permeability for water to decrease, (3) it becomes easier for gas to intrude and the invaded water becomes more difficult to drive out and (4) the microcosmic fluid distribution of each stage have a great difference, which caused the two-phase region becomes narrower and effective volume of gas storage becomes narrower.

Saturated and Unsaturated Water Flow in Inclined Porous Media

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 91-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott W. Weeks ◽  
Graham C. Sander ◽  
Roger D. Braddock ◽  
Chris J. Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Water Flow ◽  
Unsaturated Water Flow

scholarly journals Variations in Permeability and Porosity of Synthetic Oil Reservoir Rock-Methods of Control

1965 ◽  
Vol 5 (04) ◽  
pp. 329-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larman J. Heath
Keyword(s):  
Porous Media ◽  
Relative Permeability ◽  
Reservoir Rock ◽  
Oil Reservoir ◽  
Natural Reservoir ◽  
Natural Rock ◽  
Unconsolidated Sand ◽  
Synthetic Rock ◽  
Porosity And Permeability ◽  
Relative Permeability Curves

Abstract Synthetic rock with predictable porosity and permeability bas been prepared from mixtures of sand, cement and water. Three series of mixes were investigated primarily for the relation between porosity and permeability for certain grain sizes and proportions. Synthetic rock prepared of 65 per cent large grains, 27 per cent small grains and 8 per cent Portland cement, gave measurable results ranging in porosity from 22.5 to 40 per cent and in permeability from 0.1 darcies to 6 darcies. This variation in porosity and permeability was caused by varying the amount of blending water. Drainage- cycle relative permeability characteristics of the synthetic rock were similar to those of natural reservoir rock. Introduction The fundamental behavior characteristics of fluids flowing through porous media have been described in the literature. Practical application of these flow characteristics to field conditions is too complicated except where assumptions are overly simplified. The use of dimensionally scaled models to simulate oil reservoirs has been described in the literature. These and other papers have presented the theoretical and experimental justification for model design. Others have presented elements of model construction and their operation. In most investigations the porous media have consisted of either unconsolidated sand, glass beads, broken glass or plastic-impregnated granular substances-materials in which the flow behavior is not identical to that in natural reservoir rock. The relative permeability curves for unconsolidated sands differ from those for consolidated sandstone. The effect of saturation history on relative permeability measurements A discussed by Geffen, et al. Wygal has shown quite conclusively that a process of artificial cementation can be used to render unconsolidated packs into synthetic sandstones having properties similar to those of natural rock. Many theoretical and experimental studies have been made in attempts to determine the structure and properties of unconsolidated sand, the most notable being by Naar and Wygal. Others have theorized and experimented with the fundamental characteristics of reservoir rocks. This study was conducted to determine if some general relationship could be established between the size of sand grains and the porosity and permeability in consolidated binary packs. This paper presents the results obtained by changing some of the factors which affect the porosity and permeability of synthetically prepared sandstone. In addition, drainage relative permeability curves are presented. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Mixtures of Portland cement with water and aggregate generally are designed to have certain characteristics, but essentially all are planned to be impervious to water or other liquids. Synthetic sandstone simulating oil reservoir rock, however, must be designed to have a given permeability (sometimes several darcies), a porosity which is primarily the effective porosity but quantitatively similar to natural rock, and other characteristics comparable to reservoir rock, such as wettability, pore geometry, tortuosity, etc. Unconsolidated ternary mixtures of spheres gave both a theoretically computed and an experimentally observed minimum porosity of about 25 per cent. By using a particle-distribution system, one-size particle packs had reproducible porosities in the reproducible range of 35 to 37 per cent. For model reservoir studies of the prototype system, a synthetic rock having a porosity of 25 per cent or less and a permeability of 2 darcies was required. The rock bad to be uniform and competent enough to handle. Synthetic sandstone cores mere prepared utilizing the technique developed by Wygal. Some tight variations in the procedure were incorporated. The sand was sieved through U.S. Standard sieves. SPEJ P. 329ˆ

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