Water Injection in Water-Wet Fractured Porous Media: Experiments and a New Model Using Modified Buckley-Leverett Theory

Abstract

This study examines water injection in water-wet fractured porous media and its modeIing using the BuckIey-Leverett theory. New experimental data on water injection in Berea and Austin chalk matrix block(s) are presented.Water injection in Austin chalk with a permeability of 0.01-0.04 md and porosity of 5°h resuIts in about 20°h recovery from the rock matrix.In the second part of the paper, we use the Buckley-Leverett displacement in a dual-porosity modeI to simulate the the literature data as well as the experiments presented in the fist part. A new model is devised for the simulation of water injection in fractured porous media, A major element of the new model is the multiplication of the !mnsfer flux by the fracture saturation with a power of 1/2. This simple model can account for both co-current and counter-current imbibition and it is computationally very et%cient. The results of the proposed model and the free-grid simulation are in good agreement with the experimental data.

Control‐volume method for numerical simulation of two‐phase immiscible flow in two‐ and three‐dimensional discrete‐fractured media

“…Figure 8c shows difference in contours by increasing the nonlinearity in relative permeability but keeping the same capillary pressure function for both the matrix and the fracture (B m = B f = 1.0 atm). Figures 9a, 9b, 9c, and 9d Terez and Firoozabadi [1999].…”

“…These authors did not use the concept of crossflow equilibrium, and therefore the computational speed for fractured media may be very low. They also neglected capillary pressure, despite its significance in immiscible fluid flow in fractured porous media [Terez and Firoozabadi, 1999;Karimi-Fard and Firoozabadi, 2003].…”