TY - JOUR
T1 - A multiscale study on the effects of dynamic capillary pressure in two-phase flow in porous media
AU - Abbasi, Jassem
AU - Ghaedi, Mojtaba
AU - Riazi, Masoud
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to appreciate the Sintef co. for providing Matlab Reservoir Simulation Toolbox (MRST) and also Dr Knut-Andreas Lee for their worthy support during this project. Moreover, the financial and scientific support from EOR Research Centre at Shiraz University and also Reservoir Modeling and Simulation Centre (RMSC) is highly acknowledged.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Capillary pressure is usually considered as a function of the rock and fluid properties, and saturation. However, recent studies have shown that capillary forces also are a function of the rate of change of saturation. Moreover, although it was observed that dynamic forces are highly scale dependent, the role of these effects in large-scale flow practices is still unclear. In this study, using an innovative numerical simulation approach, the impact of the mentioned parameters was studied in a highly heterogeneous oil reservoir that is under waterflooding process. It is observed that the role of dynamic capillary pressure, using routinely measured dynamic capillary coefficient values, is not important in large-scale problems. However, it would be important in the higher capillary coefficient values that are several orders of magnitude larger than the values reported in previous experimental studies. Furthermore, the role of rock heterogeneity is discussed and it is shown that neglecting the dynamic capillary effects in heterogeneous media may lead to misleading results in the prediction of the injection front behavior in the reservoir. The dynamic capillary effects, by lowering the imbibition capillary pressure in the front, leads to more frontal movement of the injection fluid. Also, it is shown that the dynamic effects are more sensible at points close to the injection wells in homogenous reservoirs, but, in the heterogenous models it is more dependent on rock properties than the distance from the injection wells.
AB - Capillary pressure is usually considered as a function of the rock and fluid properties, and saturation. However, recent studies have shown that capillary forces also are a function of the rate of change of saturation. Moreover, although it was observed that dynamic forces are highly scale dependent, the role of these effects in large-scale flow practices is still unclear. In this study, using an innovative numerical simulation approach, the impact of the mentioned parameters was studied in a highly heterogeneous oil reservoir that is under waterflooding process. It is observed that the role of dynamic capillary pressure, using routinely measured dynamic capillary coefficient values, is not important in large-scale problems. However, it would be important in the higher capillary coefficient values that are several orders of magnitude larger than the values reported in previous experimental studies. Furthermore, the role of rock heterogeneity is discussed and it is shown that neglecting the dynamic capillary effects in heterogeneous media may lead to misleading results in the prediction of the injection front behavior in the reservoir. The dynamic capillary effects, by lowering the imbibition capillary pressure in the front, leads to more frontal movement of the injection fluid. Also, it is shown that the dynamic effects are more sensible at points close to the injection wells in homogenous reservoirs, but, in the heterogenous models it is more dependent on rock properties than the distance from the injection wells.
KW - Capillary Number
KW - Dynamic Capillary Coefficient
KW - Dynamic Capillary Pressure
KW - Waterflooding
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U2 - 10.1007/s11814-020-0645-8
DO - 10.1007/s11814-020-0645-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85097989610
SN - 0256-1115
VL - 37
SP - 2124
EP - 2135
JO - Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
JF - Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
IS - 12
ER -