Percolation connectivity, pore size, and gas apparent permeability: Network simulations and comparison to experimental data: Connectivity, Pore Size, and Gas Permeability

Li, M.; Tang, Y. B.; Bernabé, Y.; Zhao, J. Z.; Li, X. F.; Li, T.

doi:10.1002/2016jb013710

Percolation connectivity, pore size, and gas apparent permeability: Network simulations and comparison to experimental data: Connectivity, Pore Size, and Gas Permeability

Journal Article · Sat Jul 29 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/2016jb013710· OSTI ID:1532850

^[1]; Tang, Y. B. ^[2]; Bernabé, Y. ^[3]; Zhao, J. Z. ^[2]; Li, X. F. ^[4]; Li, T. ^[2]

Southwest Petroleum Univ., Chengdu (China); DOE/OSTI
Southwest Petroleum Univ., Chengdu (China)
Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
China Univ. of Petroleum, Beijing (China)

We modeled single-phase gas flow through porous media using percolation networks. Gas permeability is different from liquid permeability. The latter is only related to the geometry and topology of the pore space, while the former depends on the specific gas considered and varies with gas pressure. As gas pressure decreases, four flow regimes can be distinguished as viscous flow, slip flow, transition flow, and free molecular diffusion. Here we use a published conductance model presumably capable of predicting the flow rate of an arbitrary gas through a cylindrical pipe in the four regimes. We incorporated this model into pipe network simulations. We considered 3-D simple cubic, body-centered cubic, and face-centered cubic lattices, in which we varied the pipe radius distribution and the bond coordination number. Gas flow was simulated at different gas pressures. The simulation results showed that the gas apparent permeability k_app obeys an identical scaling law in all three lattices, k_app ~ (z-z_c)^β, where the exponent β depends on the width of the pipe radius distribution, z is the mean coordination number, and z_c its critical value at the percolation threshold. Surprisingly, (z-z_c) had a very weak effect on the ratio of the apparent gas permeability to the absolute liquid permeability, k_app/k_abs, suggesting that the Klinkenberg gas slippage correction factor is nearly independent of connectivity. We constructed models of k_app and k_app/k_abs based on the observed power law and tested them by comparison with published experimental data on glass beads and other materials.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

Grant/Contract Number:: FG02-97ER14760

OSTI ID:: 1532850

Journal Information:: Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth, Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 122; ISSN 2169-9313

Publisher:: American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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