Relative permeability of gas and water flow in hydrate-bearing porous media: A micro-scale study by lattice Boltzmann simulation

Ji, Yunkai; Kneafsey, Timothy J.; Hou, Jian; Zhao, Jianlin; Liu, Changling; Guo, Tiankui; Wei, Bei; Zhao, Ermeng; Bai, Yajie

doi:10.1016/j.fuel.2022.124013

Title: Relative permeability of gas and water flow in hydrate-bearing porous media: A micro-scale study by lattice Boltzmann simulation

Journal Article · 31 March 2022 · Fuel

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fuel.2022.124013 · OSTI ID:1896479

Ji, Yunkai ^[1]; Kneafsey, Timothy J. ^[2]; Hou, Jian ^[3]; Zhao, Jianlin ^[4]; Liu, Changling ^[5]; Guo, Tiankui ^[6]; Wei, Bei ^[6]; Zhao, Ermeng ^[6]; Bai, Yajie ^[6]

Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao (China); Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (China); Ministry of Education, Qingdao (China); China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao (China)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (China); Ministry of Education, Qingdao (China); China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao (China)
Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule (ETH), Zurich (Switzerland)
Ministry of Natural Resources, Qingdao (China); Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (China)
Ministry of Education, Qingdao (China); China University of Petroleum (East China), Qingdao (China)

The water-gas relative permeability is an important parameter to characterize multiphase flow in sediments. To study the water-gas relative permeability of hydrate-bearing porous media, multiphase flow simulations were carried out at the pore scale using the lattice Boltzmann method. In this work, the effects of hydrate saturation and hydrate-growth habits on the water-gas relative permeability, which is scaled by the relative permeability considering the hydrate only, were evaluated in a two-dimensional porous medium. Results show that the increase of hydrate saturation causes the decrease of water-gas effective permeability as expected. However, the effect of hydrate saturation on the water-gas relative permeability is different from that of hydrate saturation on the water-gas effective permeability. The water-gas relative permeability increases with the increase of hydrate saturation in the pore-filling case. The water-gas relative permeability decreases with the increase of hydrate saturation in the grain-coating case. The wettability of solid phase has a different effect on the relative permeability of wetting phase and nonwetting phase. The Jamin effect (phase blocking) was observed and may exist in the production of gas from natural gas hydrate reservoirs. This seriously affects the multiphase flow characteristics. The changes of microscale fluid distribution effect the changes of water-gas relative permeability. The relationship between the water-gas relative permeability and the characterization parameters of microscale fluid distribution was analyzed.

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Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES); National Science Foundation (NSF); Major Scientific and Technological Projects of CNPC; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation; USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE); Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC); Shandong Provincial Natural Science Foundation

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231; 51625403; ZD2019-184-002; 2021M701815; SDBX2021015; 41876051; 52004319; ZR201910220407

OSTI ID:: 1896479

Journal Information:: Fuel, Vol. 321; ISSN 0016-2361

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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