Capillary end effect in a water saturated porous layer

The uni-directional propagation of oil injected into water flowing through a water wetted porous slab of a finite length is investigated. The inlet and outlet edges of the slab are impermeable to the oil flux. Hence, the oil accumulates within the slab, thereby leading to a saturation build-up-capillary end effect. This phenomenon is studied analytically on the basis of a nonlinear equation describing oil-water transport in porous media. A dimensionless criterion is derived, which governs the appearance and relative strength of the capillary end effect. For weak oil-water interfacial tension (large capillary number) and long porous slabs the above effect is not observed and the temporal evolution of the oil saturation is described by the Buckley-Leverett solution. Short porous slabs are found to be almost entirely subjected to the capillary end effect. Intermediate situations are identified and quantitatively described, in which the downstream part of the slab may be divided into two zones: one-characterized by the capillary end effect, and the other being a Buckley-Leverett zone.It is shown, that the oil flux injected into the slab is limited by a maximum value which depends upon the location of the injection point. The partition of the inlet flux between the upstream and downstream directions is investigated. In the upstream side of the porous slab the oil moves under the action of free imbibition only. It is found that the upstream flux is limited by the value, which is independent of the slab's length and of the location of the injection point.     

Steady-state solutions to Bentsen's equation

Based on experimentally observed phenomena and the physical requirement of a unique value of saturation at any location within a porous medium, a restrictive condition for a valid solution to Bentsen's equation is derived: ?² f/?S ²≤0. The steady-state solution to Bentsen's equation is shown to be identical to the Buckley-Leverett solution to the displacement equation, and the steady-state solution for the fractional flow is shown to be independent of the capillary number. It is proved that under steady-state conditions, the capillary term of the fractional flow equation in the frontal region does not depend on the capillary number. Therefore, the unrealistic triple-valued saturation profile of the original Buckley-Leverett solution resulted because the capillary term was in-appropriately neglected. The break-through recovery efficiency,Τ _bt , is shown to be a function of the capillary number. As the capillary number decreases, the break-through recovery efficiency increases and the maximum value ofΤ _bt can be obtained asN _c → 0. The Buckley-Leverett solution is the limiting solution asN _c → 0.     

Matlab implementation of a moving grid method based on the equidistribution principle

The objective of this paper is to report on the development of a method of lines (MOL) toolbox within MATLAB, and especially, on the implementation and test of a moving grid algorithm based on the equidistribution principle. This new implementation includes various spatial approximation schemes based on finite differences and slope limiters, the choice between several monitor functions, automatic grid adaptation to the initial condition, and provides a relatively easy tuning for the non-expert user. Several issues, including the sensitivity of the numerical results to the tuning parameters, are discussed. A few test problems characterized by solutions with steep moving fronts, including the Buckley-Leverett equation and an extended Fisher-Kolmogorov equation, are investigated so as to demonstrate the algorithm and software performance.     

One- and two-phase flow during fluid sampling by a wireline tool

Wireline sampling tools withdraw a few litres of fluid from a permeable formation via a small sink probe pressed against the borehole wall. The aim is to recover, quickly and cheaply, a representative native fluid sample. Unfortunately, the formation in the near wellbore region is invaded by mud filtrate, and withdrawal of nonnative fluid initially is inevitable. It is therefore of interest to estimate the proportion of native fluid in the sample stream, as a function of time.Semi-analytical calculations of one- and two-phase sampling flows are presented, for the special case of constant total fluid mobility in the limits of very deep or very shallow invasion. Both the interaction of the initially cylindrically symmetric invasion profile with the spherically symmetric flow and the capillary shock-forming dynamics of two-phase flow are found to control the character of sample composition variation. The wide variety of sample stream composition histories is displayed.     

Large Scale Mixing for Immiscible Displacement in Heterogeneous Porous Media

We derive a large scale mixing parameter for a displacement process of one fluid by another immiscible one in a two-dimensional heterogeneous porous medium. The mixing of the displacing fluid saturation due to the heterogeneities of the permeabilities is captured by a dispersive flux term in the large scale homogeneous flow equation. By making use of the stochastic approach we develop a definition of the dispersion coefficient and apply a Eulerian perturbation theory to determine explicit results to second order in the fluctuations of the total velocity. We apply this method to a uniform flow configuration as well as to a radial one. The dispersion coefficient is found to depend on the mean total velocity and can therefore be time varying. The results are compared to numerical multi-realization calculations. We found that the use of single phase flow stochastics cannot capture all phenomena observed in the numerical simulations.     

Two-phase geothermal flows with conduction and the connection with Buckley-Leverett theory

Two-phase flows of boiling water and steam in geothermal reservoirs satisfy a pair of conservation equations for mass and energy which can be combined to yield a hyperbolic wave equation for liquid saturation changes. Recent work has established that in the absence of conduction, the geothermal saturation equation is, under certain conditions, asymptotically identical with the Buckley-Leverett equation of oil recovery theory. Here we summarise this work and show that it may be extended to include conduction. In addition we show that the geothermal saturation wave speed is under all conditions formally identical with the Buckley-Leverett wave speed when the latter is written as the saturation derivative of a volumetric flow.Roman Letters C(P, S,q) geothermal saturation wave speed [ms^–1] (14) - c _t (P, S) two-phase compressibility [Pa^–1] (10) - D(P, S) diffusivity [m s^–2] (8) - E(P, S) energy density accumulation [J m^–3] (3) - g gravitational acceleration (positive downwards) [ms^–2] - h _w (P),h _w (P) specific enthalpies [J kg^–1] - J _M (P, S,P) mass flow [kg m^–2 s^–1] (5) - J _E (P, S,P) energy flow [J m^–2s^–1] (5) - k absolute permeability (constant) [m²] - k _w (S),k _s (S) relative permeabilities of liquid and vapour phases - K formation thermal conductivity (constant) [Wm^–1 K^–1] - L lower sheetC<0 in flow plane - m, c gradient and intercept - M(P, S) mass density accumulation [kg m^–3] (3) - O flow plane origin - P(x,t) pressure (primary dependent variable) [Pa] - q volume flow [ms^–1] (6) - S(x, t) liquid saturation (primary dependent variable) - S ^*(x,t) normalised saturation (Appendix) - t time (primary independent variable) [s] - T temperature (degrees Kelvin) [K] - T _sat(P) saturation line temperature [K] - TdT _sat/dP saturation line temperature derivative [K Pa^–1] (4) - T _c ,T _D convective and diffusive time constants [s] - u _w (P),u _s (P),u _r (P) specific internal energies [J kg^–1] - U upper sheetC > 0 in flow plane - U(x,t) shock velocity [m s^–1] - x spatial position (primary independent variable) [m] - X representative length - x, y flow plane coordinates - z depth variable (+z vertically downwards) [m] Greek Letters _P , _S remainder terms [Pa s^–1], [s^–1] - double-valued saturation region in the flow plane - h =h _s –h _w latent heat [J kg^–1] - = _w – _s density difference [kg m^–3] - line envelope - =D _K /D ₀ diffusivity ratio - porosity (constant) - _w (P), _s (P), _t (P, S) dynamic viscosities [Pa s] - v _w (P),v _s (P) kinematic viscosities [m²s^–1] - v ₀ =kh/KT kinematic viscosity constant [m² s^–1] - ₀ =v ₀ dynamic viscosity constant [m² s^–1] - _w (P), _s (P) density [kg m^–3] Suffixes r rock matrix - s steam (vapour) - w water (liquid) - t total - av average - 0 without conduction - K with conduction     

Displacement of a Newtonian fluid by a non-Newtonian fluid in a porous medium

This paper presents an analytical Buckley-Leverett-type solution for one-dimensibnal immiscible displacement of a Newtonian fluid by a non-Newtonian fluid in porous media. The non-Newtonian fluid viscosity is assumed to be a function of the flow potential gradient and the non-Newtonian phase saturation. To apply this method to field problems a practical procedure has been developed which is based on the analytical solution and is similar to the graphic technique of Welge. Our solution can be regarded as an extension of the Buckley-Leverett method to Non-Newtonian fluids. The analytical result reveals how the saturation profile and the displacement efficiency are controlled not only by the relative permeabilities, as in the Buckley-Leverett solution, but also by the inherent complexities of the non-Newtonian fluid. Two examples of the application of the solution are given. One application is the verification of a numerical model, which has been developed for simulation of flow of immiscible non-Newtonian and Newtonian fluids in porous media. Excellent agreement between the numerical and analytical results has been obtained using a power-law non-Newtonian fluid. Another application is to examine the effects of non-Newtonian behavior on immiscible displacement of a Newtonian fluid by a power-law non-Newtonian fluid.     

Application of conjugate-gradient-like methods to a hyperbolic problem in porous-media flow

This paper presents the application of a preconditioned conjugate-gradient-like method to a non-self-adjoint problem of interest in underground flow simulation. The method furnishes a reliable iterative solution scheme for the non-symmetric matrices arising at each iteration of the non-linear time-stepping scheme. The method employs a generalized conjugate residual scheme with nested factorization as a preconditioner. Model runs demonstrate significant computational savings over direct sparse matrix solvers.