Investigation of water and CO2 (carbon dioxide) flooding using micro-CT (micro-computed tomography) images of Berea sandstone core using finite element simulations

Gunde, Akshay C.; Bera, Bijoyendra; Mitra, Sushanta K.

doi:10.1016/j.energy.2010.07.045

Cited by 107 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…However, it is difficult to extract a pore-network that topologically and geometrically represents the complex pore geometry and physics, and therefore the pore-network model cannot reveal the fluid dynamics mechanism (Ramstad et al, 2012). In addition to pore-network model, computational fluid dynamics methods, including the lattice Boltzmann method (Liu et al, 2012), level set method (Gunde et al, 2010), volume-of-fluid method (Raeini et al, 2012) and phase field method (Anderson et al, 1998), have been developed in pore-scale simulation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical simulation of displacement characteristics of CO2 injected in pore-scale porous media

Zhu

Zhou

2016

Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

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Pore structure of porous media, including pore size and topology, is rather complex. In immiscible two-phase displacement process, the capillary force affected by pore size dominates the two-phase flow in the porous media, affecting displacement results. Direct observation of the flow patterns in the porous media is difficult, and therefore knowledge about the two-phase displacement flow is insufficient. In this paper, a two-dimensional (2D) pore structure was extracted from a sandstone sample, and the flow process that CO2 displaces resident brine in the extracted pore structure was simulated using the Navier-Stokes equation combined with the conservative level set method. The simulation results reveal that the pore throat is a crucial factor for determining CO2 displacement process in the porous media. The two-phase meniscuses in each pore throat were in a self-adjusting process. In the displacement process, CO2 preferentially broke through the maximum pore throat. Before breaking through the maximum pore throat, the pressure of CO2 continually increased, and the curvature and position of two-phase interfaces in the other pore throats adjusted accordingly. Once the maximum pore throat was broken through by the CO2, the capillary force in the other pore throats released accordingly; subsequently, the interfaces withdrew under the effect of capillary fore, preparing for breaking through the next pore throat. Therefore, the two-phase displacement in CO2 injection is accompanied by the breaking through and adjusting of the two-phase interfaces.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Numerical simulation of displacement characteristics of CO2 injected in pore-scale porous media

Zhu

Zhou

2016

Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering

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“…Gunde et al (2010) investigated the displacement of oil by CO 2 within the pore structures of a realistic porous geometry (730 lm 9 450 lm) derived from processed micro-CT images based on the finite element method. However, the COMSOL simulations require a minimum of 48 h of CPU time to obtain a converged solution for a 10 s displacement process.…”

Section: Numerical Simulationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulation and visualization of the displacement between CO2 and formation fluids at pore-scale levels and its application to the recovery of shale gas

Hou

Gao

et al. 2016

Int J Coal Sci Technol

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This article reports recent developments and advances in the simulation of the CO 2 -formation fluid displacement behaviour at the pore scale of subsurface porous media. Roughly, there are three effective visualization approaches to detect and observe the CO 2 -formation fluid displacement mechanism at the micro-scale, namely, magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray computed tomography and fabricated micromodels, but they are not capable of investigating the displacement process at the nano-scale. Though a lab-on-chip approach for the direct visualization of the fluid flow behaviour in nanoscale channels has been developed using an advanced epi-fluorescence microscopy method combined with a nanofluidic chip, it is still a qualitative analysis method. The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) can simulate the CO 2 displacement processes in a two-dimensional or three-dimensional (3D) pore structure, but until now, the CO 2 displacement mechanisms had not been thoroughly investigated and the 3D pore structure of real rock had not been directly taken into account in the simulation of the CO 2 displacement process. The status of research on the applications of CO 2 displacement to enhance shale gas recovery is also analyzed in this paper. The coupling of molecular dynamics and LBM in tandem is proposed to simulate the CO 2 -shale gas displacement process based on the 3D digital model of shale obtained from focused ion beams and scanning electron microscopy.

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“…In contrast, this technology was seldom used in research of fluid microdistribution characteristics in low permeable sandstone. The considerable research was conducted to analyze water or gas flooding to investigate the evolution law of residual oil in high-permeability core samples using the CT scanning technique [28][29][30]. However, to the best of our knowledge, scarce literature is available that has perfectly visualized and quantified the microoccurrence of irreducible water in the pore and throat system [31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Huang

Khan

et al. 2018

Geofluids

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The microflow equipment monitored with micro X-ray computerized tomography (CT) is employed to investigate the microoccurrence of the irreducible water in a low-permeability sandstone core. By means of image segmentation and the threedimensional (3D) image reconstruction technique, the visual microdistribution characteristics of irreducible water in twodimensional (2D) slices and the 3D pore-throat system are quantitatively evaluated. Some interesting findings are list as below. Firstly, due to the variant micro geometric structures of the pore-throat systems, specific core slices showed significantly different irreducible water saturation even though these slices had same areal porosity. Secondly, due to the influence of capillary trapping and the existence of oil-wetting clay (main chlorite), the irreducible water saturation in the throat system (64%) is much larger than that in the pore system (36%). Furthermore, the wetting phase (irreducible water) did not spread all over the surface of the pore-throat network which caused a much more complicated oil-water two-phase interface. Thirdly, in micro scale, the main irreducible water occurrence mode in the pore system is much different from that in the throat system. In the pore system, the irreducible water principally existed in the corner of the pores which are linked through a water film. While in the throat system, the irreducible water occurrence is dominated by the water film. However, 25.5% of the throats are blocked by the irreducible water which cut off the crude oil drainage channels.

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Investigation of water and CO2 (carbon dioxide) flooding using micro-CT (micro-computed tomography) images of Berea sandstone core using finite element simulations

Cited by 107 publications

References 17 publications

Numerical simulation of displacement characteristics of CO2 injected in pore-scale porous media

Numerical simulation of displacement characteristics of CO2 injected in pore-scale porous media

Simulation and visualization of the displacement between CO2 and formation fluids at pore-scale levels and its application to the recovery of shale gas

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

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