Characterizing Porous Media with the Yield Stress Fluids Porosimetry Method

Castro, Antonio Rodríguez de; Omari, Abdelaziz; Ahmadi-Sénichault, Azita; Savin, S.; Madariaga, Luis-Fernando

doi:10.1007/s11242-016-0734-7

Cited by 21 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…Therefore, xanthan gum solutions have been reported to present an apparent yield stress [ Song et al ., ; Carnali , ; Withcomb and Macosko , ; Khodja , ; Benmouffok‐Benbelkacem et al ., ] even if strictly speaking, they should be referred to as pseudo‐yield stress fluids. The Herschel‐Bulkley model [ Herschel and Bulkley , ] has been proved to describe the steady‐state shear flow of concentrated xanthan gum solutions [ Song et al ., ; Rodríguez de Castro et al ., ].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Indeed, a nontoxic method of porosimetry has been proposed, which is based on the injection of yield stress fluids through porous media and takes advantage of the mentioned coupling [ Ambari et al ., ; Malvault , ; Oukhlef et al . ; Rodríguez de Castro , ; Rodríguez de Castro et al ., ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For these reasons, the flow of shear‐thinning fluids in porous media, and in particular that of yield stress fluids, has become a field of great research interest [ Chevalier et al ., ; Coussot , ; Talon et al ., ; Rodríguez de Castro et al ., , ]. However, although recent advances have been made [ Chevalier et al ., ], obtaining a macroscopic law to predict pressure drop as a function of flow rate has proved to be a stumbling‐block.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, Silliman [] provided different aperture estimates for variable aperture fractures. Only a few experimental works exist for the flow of yield stress fluids in porous media [ Al‐Fariss and Pinder , ; Chase and Dachavijit , ; Chevalier et al ., ; Rodríguez de Castro et al ., ], and the ranges of variation of u are usually narrow. These experimental works show that the relationship between

\nabla normalP

and u is of the same form as the constitutive equation of the fluid, i.e.,

\nabla normalP = {\nabla P}_{0} + normalC u^{n}

with

{\nabla P}_{0}

being the critical pressure gradient below which no flow occurs, n being the flow index of the fluid and C being a parameter that depends on the porous medium and the boundary conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flow of yield stress and Carreau fluids through rough‐walled rock fractures: Prediction and experiments

Castro

Radilla

2017

Water Resources Research

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Many natural phenomena in geophysics and hydrogeology involve the flow of non‐Newtonian fluids through natural rough‐walled fractures. Therefore, there is considerable interest in predicting the pressure drop generated by complex flow in these media under a given set of boundary conditions. However, this task is markedly more challenging than the Newtonian case given the coupling of geometrical and rheological parameters in the flow law. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a simple method to predict the flow of commonly used Carreau and yield stress fluids through fractures. To do so, an expression relating the “in situ” shear viscosity of the fluid to the bulk shear‐viscosity parameters is obtained. Then, this “in situ” viscosity is entered in the macroscopic laws to predict the flow rate‐pressure gradient relations. Experiments with yield stress and Carreau fluids in two replicas of natural fractures covering a wide range of injection flow rates are presented and compared to the predictions of the proposed method. Our results show that the use of a constant shift parameter to relate “in situ” and bulk shear viscosity is no longer valid in the presence of a yield stress or a plateau viscosity. Consequently, properly representing the dependence of the shift parameter on the flow rate is crucial to obtain accurate predictions. The proposed method predicts the pressure drop in a rough‐walled fracture at a given injection flow rate by only using the shear rheology of the fluid, the hydraulic aperture of the fracture, and the inertial coefficients as inputs.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

\nabla normalP

and u is of the same form as the constitutive equation of the fluid, i.e.,

\nabla normalP = {\nabla P}_{0} + normalC u^{n}

with

{\nabla P}_{0}

being the critical pressure gradient below which no flow occurs, n being the flow index of the fluid and C being a parameter that depends on the porous medium and the boundary conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Flow of yield stress and Carreau fluids through rough‐walled rock fractures: Prediction and experiments

Castro

Radilla

2017

Water Resources Research

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“…A similar study was carried out by Rodriguez de Castro et al . (, ), whereby the bundle of straight parallel capillaries was also adopted to represent porous media. In their research, they formulated a set of inequalities from which they were able to determine pore sizes and their corresponding numbers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Characterization of synthetic porous media using non‐Newtonian fluids: experimental evidence

Atallah

Najm

2018

European J Soil Science

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Summary The characterization of pore structures is required for a broad range of applications, from modelling flow dynamics to understanding petroleum reservoir performance. This research was based on a theoretical framework proposed by Abou Najm and Atallah for improved characterization of pore structures using Newtonian and non‐Newtonian fluids. Here, we report the first experimental evidence of the ability of non‐Newtonian shear‐thinning fluids to predict the pore structure of three synthetic porous media using only saturated infiltration experiments of water and guar gum solutions at different concentrations. The method predicted multiple distinct representative pore sizes, depending on the number of guar gum solutions used, optimized to mimic the functional behaviour of porous media in terms of flow and porosity. Statistical analysis revealed satisfactory agreement between the predicted and real pore structures in the three synthetic porous media. Highlights Experimental evidence of the ability of non‐Newtonian fluids to infer the pore structure of porous media Experiments enabled extraction of multi‐flow regimes mimicking functional flow and porosity behaviour Experiments with different guar gum concentrations on three synthetic porous media regenerated known pore structures Promising results for an inexpensive and safe new method for pore structure characterization

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Non‐Darcian flow experiments of shear‐thinning fluids through rough‐walled rock fractures

Castro

Radilla

2016

Water Resources Research

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Understanding non‐Darcian flow of shear‐thinning fluids through rough‐walled rock fractures is of vital importance in a number of industrial applications such as hydrogeology or petroleum engineering. Different laws are available to express the deviations from linear Darcy law due to inertial pressure losses. In particular, Darcy's law is often extended through addition of quadratic and cubic terms weighted by two inertial coefficients depending on the strength of the inertia regime. The relations between the effective shear viscosity of the fluid and the apparent viscosity in porous media when inertial deviations are negligible were extensively studied in the past. However, only recent numerical works have investigated the superposition of both inertial and shear‐thinning effects, finding that the same inertial coefficients obtained for non‐Darcian Newtonian flow applied in the case of shear‐thinning fluids. The objective of this work is to experimentally validate these results, extending their applicability to the case of rough‐walled rock fractures. To do so, flow experiments with aqueous polymer solutions have been conducted using replicas of natural fractures, and the effects of polymer concentration, which determine the shear rheology of the injected fluid, have been evaluated. Our findings show that the experimental pressure loss‐flow rate data for inertial flow of shear‐thinning fluids can be successfully predicted from the empirical parameters obtained during non‐Darcian Newtonian flow and Darcian shear‐thinning flow in a given porous medium.

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Characterizing Porous Media with the Yield Stress Fluids Porosimetry Method

Abstract: is an open access repository that collects the work of Arts et Métiers ParisTech researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible.

Cited by 21 publications

References 33 publications

Flow of yield stress and Carreau fluids through rough‐walled rock fractures: Prediction and experiments

Flow of yield stress and Carreau fluids through rough‐walled rock fractures: Prediction and experiments

Characterization of synthetic porous media using non‐Newtonian fluids: experimental evidence

Non‐Darcian flow experiments of shear‐thinning fluids through rough‐walled rock fractures

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