This is not the latest version of this item. The latest version can be found here.
Phase space study of viscous fingering and saturation pre- and post-breakthrough using lattice Boltzmann simulations of two-phase flow
Name
12517_2021_8683_ReferencePDF.pdf
Size
1.9 MB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
238be4d53b078d3978e3dc90b84400c5
Author(s)
Juanes, Ruben
Date Issued
November 25, 2021
Journal
Arabian journal of geosciences
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Citation
Arabian Journal of Geosciences. 2021 Nov 25;14(23):2645
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Abstract
Viscous fingering is the occurrence of narrow fingers of an invading less viscous fluid such as water in a porous medium filled with a more viscous fluid such as oil, and its occurrence dramatically affects enhanced oil recovery by water flooding. We conduct 2D simulations using the lattice Boltzmann method for two-phase flow through a porous medium initially saturated with a fluid of a given viscosity in which a fluid of another viscosity is injected from the left side of the model. We conduct suites of simulations over viscosity ratios (
∼
1
/
(
mobility
ratio
)
$\sim 1/(\mathrm {mobility\ ratio})$
) from M = 0.01 through M = 100 and for wetting angles from non-wetting to fully wetting. We plot the phase space of saturation (= Recovery Factor) versus wetting angle and viscosity ratio. We remove the dominant viscosity ratio effect to study the effect of wetting angle and find that while there is some tendency for the saturation to be higher with increasing wettability, the saturation landscape is complex with hills and valleys in which optimal wetting angles exist that maximize saturation. Furthermore, the phase space landscape is found to depend on the porous matrix geometry. We also plot saturation post-breakthrough and find that the saturation continues to increase albeit at an ever decreasing rate. This research demonstrates the potential of the lattice Boltzmann method for two-phase flow to reveal unexpected behavior and phenomena with both scientific and practical significance such as optimization of recovery factors in enhanced oil recovery (EOR).
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-021-08683-y
