Stabilizing Fluid-Fluid Displacements in Porous Media Through Wettability Alteration
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PhysRevApplied.3.054008.pdf
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2.24 MB
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Author(s)
Trojer, Mathias
Szulczewski, Michael L.
Juanes, Ruben
Date Issued
May 2015
Journal
Physical Review Applied
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Trojer, Mathias, Michael L. Szulczewski, and Ruben Juanes. “Stabilizing Fluid-Fluid Displacements in Porous Media Through Wettability Alteration.” Physical Review Applied 3, no. 5 (May 2015). © 2015 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
We study experimentally how wettability impacts fluid-fluid-displacement patterns in granular media. We inject a low-viscosity fluid (air) into a thin bed of glass beads initially saturated with a more-viscous fluid (a water-glycerol mixture). Chemical treatment of glass surfaces allows us to control the wetting properties of the medium and modify the contact angle θ from 5° (drainage) to 120° (imbibition). We demonstrate that wettability exerts a powerful influence on the invasion morphology of unfavorable mobility displacements: increasing θ stabilizes fluid invasion into the granular pack at all capillary numbers. In particular, we report the striking observation of a stable radial displacement at low capillary numbers, whose origin lies on the cooperative nature of fluid invasion at the pore scale.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.3.054008
