Flow rate impacts on capillary pressure and interface curvature of connected and disconnected fluid phases during multiphase flow in sandstone

Herring, Anna L.; Middleton, Jill; Walsh, Rick B.; Kingston, Andrew; Sheppard, Adrian

doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.05.011

Cited by 53 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…As demonstrated by the sensitivity analysis ( Figure S2 in the SI), pore network model descriptions of capillary pressure are much less dependent on image processing uncertainty than relative permeability. This is also significant because sub-core scale estimates of capillary pressure characteristics can be validated by ganglia-curvature based measurements (Herring et al, 2017;Garing et al, 2017;Lin et al, 2018Lin et al, , 2018Jackson et al, 2019), whereas estimates of relative permeability across similar size domains cannot.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Micro-CT has been a valuable tool for experimental characterization of pore space geometry, (Lin et al, 2016) mineralogy (Lai et al, 2015;Menke et al, 2015;Beckingham et al, 2017;Al-Khulaifi et al, 2019), wettability (Iglauer et al, 2012;Bartels et al, 2019;Lin et al, 2019), residual trapping (Herring et al, 2013;Chaudhary et al, 2013;Al-Menhali & Krevor, 2016;Øren et al, 2019), and curvature-based capillary pressure (Armstrong et al, 2012;Herring et al, 2017;Garing et al, 2017;Lin et al, 2018;T. Li et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Pore Network Model Predictions of Darcy‐Scale Multiphase Flow Heterogeneity Validated by Experiments

Zahasky

Jackson

Lin

et al. 2020

Water Resources Research

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pore Network Model Predictions of Darcy‐Scale Multiphase Flow Heterogeneity Validated by Experiments

Zahasky

Jackson

Lin

et al. 2020

Water Resources Research

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“…One approach calculates curvatures from the gradient of 3D float data (e.g., raw or processed grayscale data), while the other approach estimates curvature through the fitting of a quadratic form locally to a surface extracted from voxelized, segmented data [14]. We used the latter approach as this has been presented in previous studies [14,1,15,4,3,16].…”

Section: Curvature Computation On Voxelized Imagesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Later, using the same dataset, Li et al [3] presented that their proposed curvature measurement method improved the agreement with the transducer based capillary pressure. Using a similar curvature measurement method, Herring et al [4] estimated the capillary pressure for a range of curvature between 0 and 0.225 voxel -1 based on their air/water drainage and imbibition experiments on a Bentheimer sandstone. However, there is an inherent difficulty of this imagebased curvature measurement: the use of voxelized image data for the calculation of curvature can cause significant errors, resulting in a wide range of measured values, with some negative curvature values, which are not expected in a water-wet system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Local Capillary Pressure Estimation Based on Curvature of the Fluid Interface – Validation with Two-Phase Direct Numerical Simulations

2020

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With the advancement of high-resolution three-dimensional X-ray imaging, it is now possible to directly calculate the curvature of the interface of two phases extracted from segmented CT images during two-phase flow experiments to derive capillary pressure. However, there is an inherent difficulty of this image-based curvature measurement: the use of voxelized image data for the calculation of curvature can cause significant errors. To address this, we first perform two-phase direct numerical simulations to obtain the oil and water phase distribution, the exact location of the interface, and local fluid pressure. We then investigate a method to compute curvature on the oil/water interface. The interface is defined in two ways. In one case the simulated interface which has a sub-resolution smoothness is used, while the other is a smoothed interface which is extracted from synthetic segmented data based on the simulated phase distribution. Computed mean curvature on these surfaces are compared with that obtained from the fluid pressure computed directly in the simulation. We discuss the accuracy of image-based curvature measurements for the calculation of capillary pressure and propose the best way to extract an accurate curvature measurement, quantifying the likely uncertainties.

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“…In recent years, pore-scale X-ray microtomography (micro-CT) imaging has been widely used in geologically related studies (Al-Khulaifi et al, 2018;Al-Menhali et al, 2016;Andrew et al, 2014a;Berg et al, 2013;Blunt et al, 2013;Cnudde & Boone, 2013;Ketcham & Carlson, 2001;Lai et al, 2015;Lin et al, 2018;Lin, Al-Khulaifi, et al, 2016;Lin, Neethling, et al, 2016;Qajar & Arns, 2016;Reyes et al, 2017;Reynolds et al, 2017;Saif et al, 2017;Schlüter et al, 2016). In particular, imaging of multiphase flow in porous rock has been performed, covering a wide range of topics, including wettability characterization based on contact angle measurement, relative permeability, and curvature analysis in the pore space to estimate capillary pressure (Akbarabadi & Piri, 2013;Alhammadi et al, 2017;AlRatrout et al, 2017;Andrew et al, 2014b;Armstrong, Pentland, et al, 2012;Arns et al, 2003;Berg et al, 2016;Gao et al, 2017;Garing et al, 2017;Herring et al, 2017;Krevor et al, 2012;Lin et al, 2017;Lv et al, 2017;Norouzi Apourvari & Arns, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaging and Measurement of Pore‐Scale Interfacial Curvature to Determine Capillary Pressure Simultaneously With Relative Permeability

Lin

Bijeljic

Pini

et al. 2018

Water Resources Research

100

104

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There are a number of challenges associated with the determination of relative permeability and capillary pressure. It is difficult to measure both parameters simultaneously on the same sample using conventional methods. Instead, separate measurements are made on different samples, usually with different flooding protocols. Hence, it is not certain that the pore structure and displacement processes used to determine relative permeability are the same as those when capillary pressure was measured. Moreover, at present, we do not use pore‐scale information from high‐resolution imaging to inform multiphase flow properties directly. We introduce a method using pore‐scale imaging to determine capillary pressure from local interfacial curvature. This, in combination with pressure drop measurements, allows both relative permeabilities and capillary pressure to be determined during steady state coinjection of two phases through the core. A steady state waterflood experiment was performed in a Bentheimer sandstone, where decalin and brine were simultaneously injected through the core at increasing brine fractional flows from 0 to 1. The local saturation and the curvature of the oil‐brine interface were determined. Using the Young‐Laplace law, the curvature was related to a local capillary pressure. There was a detectable gradient in both saturation and capillary pressure along the flow direction. The relative permeability was determined from the experimentally measured pressure drop and average saturation obtained by imaging. An analytical correction to the brine relative permeability could be made using the capillary pressure gradient. The results for both relative permeability and capillary pressure are consistent with previous literature measurements on larger samples.

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Flow rate impacts on capillary pressure and interface curvature of connected and disconnected fluid phases during multiphase flow in sandstone

Cited by 53 publications

References 34 publications

Pore Network Model Predictions of Darcy‐Scale Multiphase Flow Heterogeneity Validated by Experiments

Pore Network Model Predictions of Darcy‐Scale Multiphase Flow Heterogeneity Validated by Experiments

Local Capillary Pressure Estimation Based on Curvature of the Fluid Interface – Validation with Two-Phase Direct Numerical Simulations

Imaging and Measurement of Pore‐Scale Interfacial Curvature to Determine Capillary Pressure Simultaneously With Relative Permeability

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