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

Abstract

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 themore » 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.« less

Authors:

Li, M.  ^[1];

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

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+ Show Author Affiliations

1. Southwest Petroleum Univ., Chengdu (China)
2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
3. China Univ. of Petroleum, Beijing (China)

Publication Date:

Sat Jul 29 00:00:00 EDT 2017

Research Org.:

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

Sponsoring Org.:

USDOE Office of Science (SC)

OSTI Identifier:

1532850

Grant/Contract Number:  

FG02-97ER14760

Resource Type:

Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:

Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth

Additional Journal Information:

Journal Volume: 122; Journal Issue: 7; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-9313

Publisher:

American Geophysical Union

Country of Publication:

United States

Language:

English

Subject:

58 GEOSCIENCES; Geochemistry & Geophysics