scholarly journals Simulating gas-water relative permeabilities for nanoscale porous media with interfacial effects

Open Physics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 517-524
Author(s):  
Jiulong Wang ◽  
Hongqing Song ◽  
Tianxin Li ◽  
Yuhe Wang ◽  
Xuhua Gao

AbstractThis paper presents a theoretical method to simulate gas-water relative permeability for nanoscale porous media utilizing fractal theory. The comparison between the calculation results and experimental data was performed to validate the present model. The result shows that the gas-water relative permeability would be underestimated significantly without interfacial effects. The thinner the liquid film thickness, the greater the liquid-phase relative permeability. In addition, both liquid surface diffusion and gas diffusion coefficient can promote gas-liquid two-phase flow. Increase of liquid surface diffusion prefer to increase liquid-phase permeability obviously as similar as increase of gas diffusion coefficient to increase gas-phase permeability. Moreover, the pore structure will become complicated with the increase of fractal dimension, which would reduce the gas-water relative permeability. This study has provided new insights for development of gas reservoirs with nanoscale pores such as shale.

2021 ◽  
Vol 248 ◽  
pp. 01026
Author(s):  
Du Zhehua

Based on the capillary hypothesis and fractal theory, a mathematical model for calculating the effective gas diffusion coefficient in porous media is established. By using fractal geometry theory, pore area fractal dimension, tortuosity fractal dimension and pore connectivity are introduced to quantitatively characterize the real internal structure in the porous media. An effective gas diffusion coefficient model for the fractal porous media is derived, and the influence of multi-scale porous media microstructure parameters on the effective gas diffusion coefficient is discussed. The results show that effective gas diffusion coefficient approximates to linearly increase with the increase of porosity, the pore area fractal dimension and the effective gas diffusion coefficient is positive correlation, but the tortuosity fractal dimension is negatively related to it. In the case of different porosities, the gas effective diffusion coefficient varies with the change of the pore diameter ratio, the effective gas diffusion coefficient increases with the increase of pore connectivity.


Fractals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (07) ◽  
pp. 2050138
Author(s):  
QI ZHANG ◽  
XINYUE WU ◽  
QINGBANG MENG ◽  
YAN WANG ◽  
JIANCHAO CAI

Complicated gas–water transport behaviors in nanoporous shale media are known to be influenced by multiple transport mechanisms and pore structure characteristics. More accurate characterization of the fluid transport in shale reservoirs is essential to macroscale modeling for production prediction. This paper develops the analytical relative permeability models for gas–water two-phase in both organic and inorganic matter (OM and IM) of nanoporous shale using the fractal theory. Heterogeneous pore size distribution (PSD) of the shale media is considered instead of the tortuous capillaries with uniform diameters. The gas–water transport models for OM and IM are established, incorporating gas slippage described by second-order slip condition, water film thickness in IM, surface diffusion in OM, and the total organic carbon. Then, the presented model is validated by experimental results. After that, sensitivity analysis of gas–water transport behaviors based on pore structure properties of the shale sample is conducted, and the influence factors of fluid transport behaviors are discussed. The results show that the gas relative permeability is larger than 1 at the low pore pressure and water saturation. The larger pore pressure causes slight effect of gas slippage and surface diffusion on the gas relative permeability. The larger PSD fractal dimension of IM results in larger gas relative permeability and smaller water relative permeability. Besides, the large tortuosity fractal dimension will decrease the gas flux at the same water saturation, and the surface diffusion decreases with the increase of tortuosity fractal dimension of OM and pore pressure. The proposed models can provide an approach for macroscale modeling of the development of shale gas reservoirs.


Fractals ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (03) ◽  
pp. 1650034 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHIFANG WANG ◽  
TAO WU ◽  
YONGJU DENG ◽  
QIUSHA ZHENG ◽  
QIAN ZHENG

Gas diffusion in dry porous media has been a hot topic in several areas of technology for many years. In this paper, a diffusivity model for gas diffusion in dry porous media is developed based on fractal theory and Fick’s law, which incorporates the effects of converging–diverging pores and tortuous characteristics of capillaries as well as Knudsen diffusion. The effective gas diffusivity model is expressed as a function of the fluctuation amplitude of the capillary cross-section size variations, the porosity, the pore area fractal dimension and the tortuosity fractal dimension. The results show that the relative diffusivity decreases with the increase of the fluctuation amplitude and increases with the increase of pore area fractal dimension. To verify the validity of the present model, the relative diffusivity from the proposed fractal model is compared with the existing experimental data as well as two available models of Bruggeman and Shou. Our proposed diffusivity model with pore converging–diverging effect included is in good agreement with reported experimental data.


2021 ◽  
Vol 248 ◽  
pp. 01011
Author(s):  
Du Zhehua

Gas diffusion in fractal pores does not follow the classic Fick’s and Knudsen’s laws, so more research on gas diffusion in fractal porous media is needed. Fractal pore models are generated using the random walk method. The gas diffusion governing equations for the fractal pores are derived from the classic kineti theory of gases. The gas diffusion model is used to study the gas diffusion in fractal porous meida and to determine steady-state diffusion coefficient formulas. The results show that the diffusion coefficient is proportional to the mean proe diameter, porosity, and the exponetial function of the fractal dimension in the Knudsen diffusion regime. The diffusion coefficient is not only related to the three pore parameters but is also related to the molecular mean free path in the configurational diffusion regime.


Author(s):  
Shixue Wang ◽  
Yoshio Utaka ◽  
Yutaka Tasaki

It is known that the mass transfer characteristics of the gas diffusion layer (GDL) are closely related to the performance of a proton-exchange membrane fuel cell. In this study, an experimental method was established for measuring the gas diffusion coefficient in porous media by using an oxygen concentration sensor based on a galvanic battery operating at normal temperature. The oxygen diffusion coefficient in air measured by this method corresponded with data in the literature within ±6% deviation. The oxygen diffusion coefficients of two kinds of porous media generally used for the GDL were measured by the experimental method for dry and wet samples. The results indicate that the gas diffusion coefficient in porous media not only depends on porosity but is also affected by other factors, for example, tortuosity. It was also found that the diffusion coefficient in different directions, for example, through-plane and in-plane, in porous media can be very different. The oxygen diffusion coefficient in the porous media containing liquid water varied nonlinearly with the saturation level and was strongly affected by other factors as well.


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