Analytical and numerical investigations of spontaneous imbibition in porous media
File(s)Nooruddin and Blunt WRR 2016.pdf (2.67 MB)
Published version
Author(s)
Nooruddin, HA
Blunt, MJ
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We present semianalytical solutions for cocurrent displacements with some degree of countercurrent flow. The solution assumes a one-dimensional horizontal displacement of two immiscible incompressible fluids with arbitrary viscosities and saturation-dependent relative permeability and capillary pressures. We address the impact of the system length on the degree of countercurrent flow when there is no pressure drop in the nonwetting phase across the system, assuming negligible capillary back pressure at the inlet boundary of the system. It is shown that in such displacements, the fractional flow can be used to determine a critical water saturation, from which regions of both cocurrent and countercurrent flow are identified. This critical saturation changes with time as the saturation front moves into the porous medium. Furthermore, the saturation profile in the approach presented here is not necessarily a function of distance divided by the square root of time. We also present approximate solutions using a perturbative approach, which is valid for a wide range of flow conditions. This approach requires less computational power and is much easier to implement than the implicit integral solutions used in previous work. Finally, a comprehensive comparison between analytical and numerical solutions is presented. Numerical computations are performed using traditional finite-difference formulations and convergence analysis shows a generally slow convergence rate for water imbibition rates and saturation profiles. This suggests that most coarsely gridded simulations give a poor estimate of imbibition rates, while demonstrating the value of these analytical solutions as benchmarks for numerical studies, complementing Buckley-Leverett analysis.
Date Issued
2016-09-24
Date Acceptance
2016-08-25
Citation
Water Resources Research, 2016, 52 (9), pp.7284-7310
ISSN
1944-7973
Publisher
American Geophysical Union (AGU)
Start Page
7284
End Page
7310
Journal / Book Title
Water Resources Research
Volume
52
Issue
9
Copyright Statement
© 2016. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000386977900033&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
Physical Sciences
Environmental Sciences
Limnology
Water Resources
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
Marine & Freshwater Biology
spontaneous imbibition
immiscible displacements
analytical solutions
counter-current flow
cocurrernt flow
fractional flow
EXACT INTEGRAL SOLUTIONS
2-PHASE FLOW
EQUATION
OIL
Environmental Engineering
0905 Civil Engineering
0907 Environmental Engineering
1402 Applied Economics
Publication Status
Published