Experimental and Numerical Studies of First Contact Miscible Injection in a Quarter Five Spot Pattern

Abstract

We quantify the impact of mobility, simple heterogeneities and grid orientation error on the performance of first contact miscible gas flooding in a quarter five spot configuration by comparing the outputs from experimental and numerical models. The aim is to quantify the errors that may arise during simulation and to identify a workflow for minimizing these when conducting field scale fingering studies.A commercial reservoir simulator was validated by comparing its predictions with the results obtained from physical experiments. An uncorrelated, random permeability distribution was used to trigger fingering in the simulations. The physical experiments were carried out using a Hele-Shaw cell (40ϫ40cm) designed and constructed for this study. The impact of a square low permeability inclusion (20ϫ20cm) on flow was investigated by varying its permeability, location and orientation.For lower mobility ratios (Mϭ2 to Mϭ10) the commercial numerical simulator was able to reproduce the experimental observations within the uncertainty range of the permeability distribution used to trigger the fingers, provided a nine-point scheme was used for the pressure solution. At higher mobility ratios (Mϭ20 to Mϭ100) the grid orientation effect meant that the simulator overestimated the areal sweep even when a nine-point scheme was used. The introduction of a square, low permeability inclusion near the injection well reduced the discrepancy between experimental and numerical results, bringing it back within uncertainty limits in some of the cases. This was mainly because the real flow was then forced to move parallel to the edges of the Hele-Shaw cell and thus parallel to the simulation grid. Breakthrough times were well predicted by the numerical simulator at all mobility ratios.

Viscous Fingering Dynamics and Flow Regimes of Miscible Displacements in a Sealed Hele-Shaw Cell

“…The present VF dynamics clearly distinguishes itself from that in five-spot geometry [37], radial geometry [38], and rectangular geometry [36]. With the current well location and Hele-Shaw cell geometry, a non-symmetrical fingering pattern is observed, while the five-spot geometry assumes a symmetrical flow pattern.…”

Adaptive Mesh Optimization for Simulation of Immiscible Viscous Fingering

“…A further problem is that significant grid orientation error can occur when using such approaches (e.g. Djjabarov et al, 2016).…”

The effect of viscosity ratio and Peclet number on miscible viscous fingering in a Hele-Shaw cell: A combined numerical and experimental study

“…Changing the permeability realisation can alter the breakthrough time by ±0.03P V , similar to the uncertainty in repeat experimental runs. Earlier simulations by Djabbarov et al (2016) used a nine-point centred numerical approximation; these provided predictions with less mesh orientation error, however, their simulations did not model physical diffusion or velocity dependent dispersion. Here, we can see that the simulation uncertainties largely overlap with the experimental uncertainty, and provide good overall predictions of the macroscopic measures.…”

“…We include references that provide sufficient information to characterise the pack or cell properties, the viscosity ratio(s) used and the Peclet number and/or provide some results in terms of fingering patterns or other measures of fingering dynamics. Most of these investigations used Hele-Shaw cells (Mahaffey et al (1966); Paterson (1985); Stoneberger and Claridge (1988); Petitjeans et al (1999); Bischofberger et al (2014); Djabbarov et al (2016); Videbaek and Nagel (2019)). Zhang et al (1997) used glass bead packs whilst Habermann (1960) used a system in which sand was glued to the glass plates.…”

“…All of the experiments investigated the flow patterns in homogeneous systems, with the exception of those described by Djabbarov et al (2016). In addition, of the experiments identified in the literature, only Zhang et al (1997) and Djabbarov et al (2016) compared the predictions of numerical simulations with their experimentally observed fingering patterns. In both papers the simulations did not provide a good prediction of the fingering patterns although they were able to provide reasonable estimates of effluent profiles.…”