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Estimation of three‐phase relative permeability by simulating fluid dynamics directly on rock‐microstructure images
Author(s) -
Jiang F.,
Tsuji T.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1002/2016wr019098
Subject(s) - relative permeability , permeability (electromagnetism) , porous medium , petroleum engineering , enhanced oil recovery , lattice boltzmann methods , porosity , fluid dynamics , carbon sequestration , multiphase flow , environmental science , geology , mechanics , geotechnical engineering , carbon dioxide , chemistry , biochemistry , physics , organic chemistry , membrane
Given the world's growing demand for energy, a combination of geological CO 2 sequestration and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) technologies is currently regarded as a promising solution, as it would provide a means of reducing carbon emissions into the atmosphere while also leading to the economic benefit of simultaneously recovering oil. The optimization of injection strategies to maximize CO 2 storage and increase the oil recovery factors requires complicated pore‐scale flow information within a reservoir system consisting of coexisting oil, water, and CO 2 phases. In this study, an immiscible three‐phase lattice‐Boltzmann (LB) model was developed to investigate the complicated flow state with interaction between water, oil, and CO 2 systems in porous media. The two main mechanisms of oil remobilization, namely, double‐drainage and film flow, can be captured by our model. The estimation of three‐phase relative permeability is proposed using the digital rock physics (DRP) simulations. The results indicate that the relative permeability of CO 2 as calculated using our steady state method is not sensitive to the initial oil fraction if the oil distribution is originally uniform. Baker's (1988) empirical model was tested and found to be able to provide a good prediction of the three‐phase relative permeability data. Our numerical method provides a new tool for accurately predicting three‐phase relative permeability data directly based on micro‐CT rock images.