A closed-form equation for capillary pressure in porous media for all wettabilities
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Published version
Author(s)
Foroughi, Sajjad
Bijeljic, Branko
Blunt, Martin J
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
A saturation–capillary pressure relationship is proposed that is applicable for all wettabilities, including mixed-wet and oil-wet or hydrophobic media. This formulation is more flexible than existing correlations that only match water-wet data, while also allowing saturation to be written as a closed-form function of capillary pressure: we can determine capillary pressure explicitly from saturation, and vice versa. We propose
Pc=A+Btan(π2−πSCe)for0≤Se≤1,
where Se is the normalized saturation. A indicates the wettability: A>0 is a water-wet medium, A<0 is hydrophobic while small A suggests mixed wettability. B represents the average curvature and pore-size distribution which can be much lower in mixed-wet compared to water-wet media with the same pore structure if the menisci are approximately minimal surfaces. C is an exponent that controls the inflection point in the capillary pressure and the asymptotic behaviour near end points. We match the model accurately to 29 datasets in the literature for water-wet, mixed-wet and hydrophobic media, including rocks, soils, bead and sand packs and fibrous materials with over four orders of magnitude difference in permeability and porosities from 20% to nearly 90%. We apply Leverett J-function scaling to make the expression for capillary pressure dimensionless and discuss the behaviour of analytical solutions for spontaneous imbibition.
Pc=A+Btan(π2−πSCe)for0≤Se≤1,
where Se is the normalized saturation. A indicates the wettability: A>0 is a water-wet medium, A<0 is hydrophobic while small A suggests mixed wettability. B represents the average curvature and pore-size distribution which can be much lower in mixed-wet compared to water-wet media with the same pore structure if the menisci are approximately minimal surfaces. C is an exponent that controls the inflection point in the capillary pressure and the asymptotic behaviour near end points. We match the model accurately to 29 datasets in the literature for water-wet, mixed-wet and hydrophobic media, including rocks, soils, bead and sand packs and fibrous materials with over four orders of magnitude difference in permeability and porosities from 20% to nearly 90%. We apply Leverett J-function scaling to make the expression for capillary pressure dimensionless and discuss the behaviour of analytical solutions for spontaneous imbibition.
Date Issued
2022-10-17
Date Acceptance
2022-10-03
Citation
Transport in Porous Media, 2022, 145, pp.683-696
ISSN
0169-3913
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
683
End Page
696
Journal / Book Title
Transport in Porous Media
Volume
145
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2022, corrected publication 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
Shell Research Limited
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000868968000001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Grant Number
4550197576
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Engineering, Chemical
Engineering
Capillary pressure
Mixed-wet
Oil-wet
Water-wet
Hydrophobic
Hydrophilic
Gas diffusion layers
Porous material
MULTISCALE
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-10-17