Pore-scale to Core-scale Aspects of Capillary Desaturation Curves Using CT-scan Imaging

Oughanem, Rezki; Youssef, S.; Bazin, Brigitte; Maire, Éric; Vizika, O.

doi:10.3997/2214-4609.20142615

Cited by 12 publications

(15 citation statements)

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“…A porous ceramic plate was placed at the end of each sample to avoid capillary end effects. Irreducible water saturation (S wi ) was determined by the CT scanning method (Oughanem et al 2013) (cf. Table 1).…”

Section: Core and Pore Scale Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multi-Scale Investigation of Pore Structure Impact on the Mobilization of Trapped Oil by Surfactant Injection

et al. 2015

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The evolution of the residual oil saturation as a function of the trapping number N t (capillary number plus Bond number), is generally known as the capillary desaturation curve (CDC) and constitutes an important input parameter in chemical enhanced oil recovery flooding. However, less importance has been paid to the investigation of the influence of oil ganglia evacuation on relative permeabilities. We report on an experimental investigation dealing with the effect of flooding parameters, fluid interfacial properties and rock structure on the CDC and on the water relative permeability. Experiments were performed on a set of water-wet sandstone plugs with different petrophysical properties, and X-ray computed tomography (CT-scan) imaging was used to accurately measure the local oil saturation. Oil ganglia size distribution as well as pore scale geometrical properties was also quantified at the scale of the micrometer using high-resolution micro-computed tomography (MCT). Results showed that the CDC depends on the pore structure and specifically on the average throat radius and the inverse of the relative permeability. Oil ganglia size distribution obtained by MCT follows a typical power law as suggested by percolation theory. We also showed that CDC obtained from macroscopic measurements can be predicted from the measured oil ganglia size distribution and rock structure geometrical parameters. In parallel, we observed that for low trapping numbers, water relative permeability is independent of the trapping number. However, for intermediate trapping numbers, a strong dependence of the water relative permeability on the latter can be noticed. In this range, we showed that water relative permeability has a specific scaling with the trapping number.

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Section: Core and Pore Scale Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multi-Scale Investigation of Pore Structure Impact on the Mobilization of Trapped Oil by Surfactant Injection

et al. 2015

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“…Previous works reported the need of studying the effects of polymer concentration on the oil recovery performance using laboratory experiments [61]. In particular, CDCs are essential inputs in typical reservoir simulation software for EOR [9,21]. In response to this need, we have now demonstrated that the polymer concentration C p has a significant influence on the dynamics and patterns of interface displacement and phase distribution (even when the flowrate is kept constant) due to the effects of C p on the effective viscosity of the polymer solution.…”

Section: Ganglia Size Distribution and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since Ca has a significant impact on the amount of trapped fluid, often the residual saturation S ro is experimentally measured as a function of Ca to obtain the so-called Capillary Desaturation Curve (CDC) [14], with S ro (Ca) = (volume of the residual oil at the given Ca)/(total pore volume). The CDC is one of the most important input parameters in the reservoir simulation software for enhanced oil recovery [9,21].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of shear-thinning fluids on residual oil formation in microfluidic pore networks

Castro

Oostrom

Shokri

2016

Journal of Colloid and Interface Science

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Two-phase immiscible displacement in porous media is controlled by capillary and viscous forces when gravitational effects are negligible. The relative importance of these forces is quantified through the dimensionless capillary number Ca and the viscosity ratio M between fluid phases. When the displacing fluid is Newtonian, the effects of Ca and M on the displacement patterns can be evaluated independently. However, when the injecting fluids exhibit shear-thinning viscosity behaviour the values of M and Ca are interdependent. Under these conditions, the effects on phase entrapment and the general displacement dynamics cannot be dissociated. In the particular case of shear-thinning aqueous polymer solutions, the degree of interdependence between M and Ca is determined by the polymer concentration. In this work, two-phase immiscible displacement experiments were performed in micromodels, using shear-thinning aqueous polymer solutions as displacing fluids, to investigate the effect of polymer concentration on the relationship between Ca and M, the recovery efficiency, and the size distribution of the trapped non-wetting fluid. Our results show that the differences in terms of magnitude and distribution of the trapped phase are related to the polymer concentration which influences the values of Ca and M.

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“…The magnitude of the imbibition flow rate effect on residual saturation largely depends on the pore‐to‐throat aspect ratio (Dullien ; Oughanem et al . ). The higher the ratio, the greater the imbibition flow rate effect (Nguyen et al .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Experimental investigation of carbon dioxide trapping due to capillary retention in saline aquifers

Akbarabadi

Karpyn

et al. 2015

Geofluids

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Capillary trapping is a physical mechanism by which carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) is naturally immobilized in the pore spaces of aquifer rocks during geologic carbon sequestration operations, and thus a key aspect of estimating geologic storage potential. Here, we studied capillary trapping of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO 2 ), and the effect of initial scCO 2 saturation and flow rate on the storage/trapping potential of Berea sandstone. We performed two-phase, scCO 2 -brine displacements in two samples, each subject to four sequential drainage-imbibition coreflooding cycles to quantify end-point saturations of scCO 2 with the aid of micro-and macro-computed tomography imaging. From these experiments, we found that between 51% and 75% of the initial CO 2 injected can be left behind after the brine injection. We also observed that the initial scCO 2 saturation influenced the residual scCO 2 saturation to a greater extent than the rate of brine injection under the experimental conditions examined. In spite of differences in the experimental conditions tested, as well as those reported in the literature, initial and residual saturations were found to follow a consistent relationship.

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Pore-scale to Core-scale Aspects of Capillary Desaturation Curves Using CT-scan Imaging

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

A Multi-Scale Investigation of Pore Structure Impact on the Mobilization of Trapped Oil by Surfactant Injection

A Multi-Scale Investigation of Pore Structure Impact on the Mobilization of Trapped Oil by Surfactant Injection

Effects of shear-thinning fluids on residual oil formation in microfluidic pore networks

Experimental investigation of carbon dioxide trapping due to capillary retention in saline aquifers

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