Comprehensive study of the interactions between the critical dimensionless numbers associated with multiphase flow in 3D porous media

Journal Article · Thu May 02 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Fuel

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2019.04.098· OSTI ID:1582313

Fan, Ming ^[1]; Dalton, Laura E. ^[2]; McClure, James ^[1]; Ripepi, Nino ^[1]; Westman, Erik ^[1]; Crandall, Dustin ^[2]; Chen, Cheng ^[1]

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1. Virginia Polytechnic Inst. and State Univ. (Virginia Tech), Blacksburg, VA (United States)
2. National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Morgantown, WV (United States)

Multiphase flow in porous media is of signifcant interest in many engineering applications, such as geologic carbon sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, and groundwater contamination and remediation. In order to advance the fundamental understanding of multiphase flow in complex three-dimensional (3D) porous media, the interactions between the critical dimensionless numbers, including the contact angle, viscosity ratio, and capillary (Ca) number, were explored using X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) scanning and lattice Boltzmann (LB) modeling. In this study, the 3D pore structure information was extracted from micro-CT images and then used as interior boundary conditions of flow modeling in a pore-scale LB simulator to simulate multiphase flow within the pore space. A Berea sandstone sample was scanned and then two-phase flow LB simulations were performed based on the micro-CT images. The LB-simulated water/CO₂ distributions agreed well with the micro-CT scanned images. Simulation findings showed that a decreasing contact angle causes a decrease in wetting-fluid relative permeability and an increase in non-wetting fluid relative permeability. A rising Ca number increases both wetting and non-wetting fluid relative permeabilities. An increasing viscosity ratio (the ratio of non-wetting fluid viscosity to wetting fluid viscosity) facilitates the increase of non-wetting fluid relative permeability and mitigates the reduction of wetting fluid relative permeability, when the contact angle decreases continuously. The primary novel finding of this study is that the viscosity ratio affects the rate of change of the relative permeability curves for both phases when the contact angle changes continuously. To date, we believe it is the first time that comprehensive interactions between these dimensionless numbers are demonstrated in a sandstone sample based on real 3D structures. We also investigated the role of the changes of flow direction and sample location on relative permeability curves. Simulation results showed that the change in non-wetting fluid relative permeability was larger when the flow direction was switched from vertical to horizontal, which indicated that there was stronger anisotropy in larger pore networks that were primarily occupied by the non-wetting fluid.

• Research Organization: National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• OSTI ID: 1582313
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1595402
• Journal Information: Fuel, Journal Name: Fuel Journal Issue: C Vol. 252; ISSN 0016-2361
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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