Study on the Plugging Ability of Polymer Gel Particle for the Profile Control in Reservoir

Polymer gel particle is a widely used deep profile control agent to plug the water breakthrough channel in reservoir. However, there is still no theoretical model to describe its plugging ability available when it is applicated. Based on the Hertz contact theory and force analysis, the plugging model of polymer gel particle is established at the view of pore throat, and the parameters in the model are achieved by the pore throat experiments. The plugging model is verified by the core experiments. The results show that the plugging strength of polymer gel particle keeps rise with the increasing of the ratio between particle diameter and pore throat size, and then it will stay at a stable value because of the limitation of material strength. The material strength is 0.32 MPa and the particle will be broken when the size ratio is over 3. The plugging strength of the polymer gel particles with the diameters of 30–40 µm and 60–80 µm is 0.12 and 0.31 MPa in the cores with the permeability of 2989.6 × 10^?3 and 3014.7 × 10^?3 µm², respectively, which is consistent perfectly with the theoretical calculation. The plugging model of polymer gel particle is verified to be correct and can be applied to the profile control in reservoir.