Design and construction of an experiment for two-phase flow in fractured porous media

Technical Report · Sun Aug 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/10182391· OSTI ID:10182391

Ayala, R E.G.; Aziz, K

In numerical reservoir simulation naturally fractured reservoirs are commonly divided into matrix and fracture systems. The high permeability fractures are usually entirely responsible for flow between blocks and flow to the wells. The flow in these fractures is modeled using Darcy`s law and its extension to multiphase flow by means of relative permeabilities. The influence and measurement of fracture relative permeability for two-phase flow in fractured porous media have not been studied extensively, and the few works presented in the literature are contradictory. Experimental and numerical work on two-phase flow in fractured porous media has been initiated. An apparatus for monitoring this type of flow was designed and constructed. It consists of an artificially fractured core inside an epoxy core holder, detailed pressure and effluent monitoring, saturation measurements by means of a CT-scanner and a computerized data acquisition system. The complete apparatus was assembled and tested at conditions similar to the conditions expected for the two-phase flow experiments. Fine grid simulations of the experimental setup-were performed in order to establish experimental conditions and to study the effects of several key variables. These variables include fracture relative permeability and fracture capillary pressure. The numerical computations show that the flow is dominated by capillary imbibition, and that fracture relative permeabilities have only a minor influence. High oil recoveries without water production are achieved due to effective water imbibition from the fracture to the matrix. When imbibition is absent, fracture relative permeabilities affect the flow behavior at early production times.

• Research Organization: Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Petroleum Research Inst.
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: FG22-93BC14899
• OSTI ID: 10182391
• Report Number(s): DOE/BC/14899--3; SUPRI-TR--95; ON: DE93000164
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
020300
BENCH-SCALE EXPERIMENTS
COMPUTERIZED TOMOGRAPHY
DARCY LAW
DATA ACQUISITION SYSTEMS
DRILL CORES
DRILLING AND PRODUCTION
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
FRACTURES
OILS
PERMEABILITY
POROUS MATERIALS
SANDSTONES
TWO-PHASE FLOW
WATER