An Analytical Scaling Method for Spontaneous Imbibition in Gas/Water/Rock Systems

Abstract

A method was developed to scale the experimental data of spontaneous water imbibition (cocurrent) for gas/water/rock systems. In this method, a dimensionless time was defined with the effects of relative permeability, wettability, and gravity included. The definition was not empirical but based on a theoretical derivation. Using this dimensionless time, experimental data from spontaneous water imbibition in different rocks with different size, porosity, permeability, initial water saturation, interfacial tension, and wettability might be scaled. The scaling model proposed in this study for gas/water/rock systems was verified experimentally for different rocks (Berea, chalk, and graywacke from The Geysers) with significantly different properties; it was also verified experimentally at different initial water saturations in the same rock. The scaling results from this study demonstrated that the cocurrent spontaneous water imbibition in gas/water/rock systems could be scaled and predicted.

The Visual and Quantitative Study of the Microoccurrence of Irreducible Water at the Pore and Throat System in a Low-Permeability Sandstone Reservoir by Using Microcomputerized Tomography

“…According to the results of Kewen Li and Roland N. Horne, the irreducible water saturation has a considerable effect on the spontaneous imbibition recovery. Higher irreducible water saturation is always correlated to the lower recovery tendency in low permeable rock [9]. This phenomenon is also verified by Wang et al [10].…”

A Discussion of the Effect of Tortuosity on the Capillary Imbibition in Porous Media

“…Some capillary water imbibition experimental results show that the time exponents are much higher than theoretically predicted values (<0.5), such as 0.70 (Family et al 1992) and 0.6 (Li and Horne 2004). Kwon et al (1996) argued that this larger difference may be the different natures of the samples measured.…”

“…It is found from Table 2 that values of the time exponent lie in the range of 0.07-0.50. The porosities of experimental Table 3 Comparisons on the experimental and analytical results for time exponent from building material samples (Karoglou et al 2005 Table 4 Comparisons on the experimental and analytical results for time exponent from chalk (Li and Horne 2004), Berea (Li et al 2006), and Bentonite clay (Brú and Pastor 2006 samples such as paper, fabrics, and paper were not provided in their tests. So, the comparison between the model predictions and experimental results is not provided in Table 2.…”

“…Karoglou et al presented a simple first-order kinetic model, which can be used to predict the capillary rise height as a function of average pore radius. The present model predictions are also compared to the experimental data from chalk (Li and Horne 2004), Berea (Li et al 2006), and Bentonite clay (Brú and Pastor 2006) as shown in Table 4. From Tables 3 and 4 it is found that the present model predictions of the time exponent k increase with porosity increasing.…”

“…One of the earliest approaches to analyze imbibition was reported by Bell and Cameron (1906), who found a square-root dependency of time for absorption. Combining the Laplace relation with Poiseuille's equation of laminar References Model Lucas (1918), Washburn (1921) L s (t) = λσ cos θ 4μ t 1/2 Handy (1960) N wt = A 2 P c K φ S wf μ t 1/2 Lundblad and Bergman (1997) L s (t) = r σ cos θ 2μ t 1/2 Benavente et al (2002) M(t) A = φ 3 ρ r eff δσ cos θ 2μτ t 1/2 Li and Horne (2004) …”