Measurement of Nonequilibrium Effects During Spontaneous Imbibition
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques are of crucial importance to petroleum engineers. Two-thirds of the oil in place in reservoirs is generally left behind after primary and secondary recovery operations. Therefore, a better understanding of fluid flow in porous media is fundamental for increasing oil production. Moreover, oil recovery during EOR methods is often dependent on water imbibition that involves the displacement of a nonwetting phase by injection of water. As imbibition is common, the physics and the modeling of this phenomenon are much-discussed issues in the literature.The research work presented in this report investigates not only the mathematical model of imbibition but also its assumptions. As suggested by Barenblatt et al. (2002), the most attention has been given to the statement of instantaneous thermodynamic equilibrium.Under this assumption, imbibition is expressed as a diffusion-type equation, which implies that the problem is self-similar. Such problems have specific mathematical properties that yield a single curve when saturation is plotted against a self-similarity variable. These features have been confirmed by performing numerical simulations at the core scale. The saturation profiles show the characteristic behavior of self-similar problems and collapse to a single characteristic solution. This was expected because most of the commercial simulators are based upon the mathematical theory that assumes local equilibrium.Nevertheless, Barenblatt et al. (2002) believed that local equilibrium is not reached in porous media during spontaneous imbibition and that nonequilibrium effects should betaken into account. In this study, experiments have been conducted at core scale to reveal nonequilibrium effects and establish Barenblatt's theory as true. Experimental in-situ saturation data obtained with a computerized tomography scanner illustrates significant deviation from the numerical results. The data indicates: (i) capillary imbibition is an inherently nonequilibrium process and (ii) the traditional reservoir simulation equations may not well represent the true physics of the process
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 2004 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Le Guen, Soizic |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Kovscek, Anthony R. |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Petroleum Engineering |
Subjects
| Subject | School of Earth Energy & Environmental Sciences |
|---|---|
| Genre | Thesis |
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Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Le Guen, Soizic. (2004). Measurement of Nonequilibrium Effects During Spontaneous Imbibition. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/rc320qk3407
Collection
Master's Theses, Doerr School of Sustainability
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