The effect of flow resistance on water saturation profile for transient two-phase flow in fractal porous media

Abstract

Due to the rapid development of Micro-Electro-Mechanical System, more and more attention has been paid to the fluid properties of porous media, which is significant for petroleum engineering. However, most of surfaces of pores and capillaries in porous media are rough. On the approximation that porous medium consists of a bundle of tortuous and rough capillaries, a Buckley-Leverett conceptual model with considering flow resistance is developed based on the fractal geometry theory, which is beneficial to predict water saturation profile in porous medium. The proposed Buckley-Leverett solution is a function of fractal structural parameters (such as pore fractal dimension, tortuosity fractal dimension, maximum and minimum diameters of capillaries), fluid properties (such as viscosity, contact angle and interfacial tension) and pore structure parameter (relative roughness) in fractal porous medium. Besides, the relationship between water saturation and distance is presented according to Buckley-Leverett solution. The impaction of flow resistance on water saturation profile is discussed.

Cited as: Lu, T., Li, Z., Lai, F., Meng, Y., Ma, W. The effect of flow resistance on water saturation profile for transient two-phase flow in fractal porous media. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2018, 2(1): 63-71, doi: 10.26804/ager.2018.01.06

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