Investigation into the Effect of Water Fraction on the Single-Phase Flow of Water-in-Oil Emulsion in a Porous Medium Usi
- PDF / 3,088,016 Bytes
- 13 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 7 Downloads / 158 Views
RESEARCH ARTICLE-PETROLEUM ENGINEERING
Investigation into the Effect of Water Fraction on the Single‑Phase Flow of Water‑in‑Oil Emulsion in a Porous Medium Using CFD Olalekan S. Alade1 · Mohamed Mahmoud1 · Dhafer. A. Al Shehri1 · L. Gang1 · Abdulsamed Iddris1 Received: 28 September 2019 / Accepted: 29 April 2020 © King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals 2020
Abstract Effect of water fraction on the flow characteristics of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsions through porous medium has been investigated by experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Flooding experiments of W/O emulsions (E 1, E2, E3: water fraction, θw (%v/v), = 11.8, 22, to 38%, respectively) and those of original oil (E0, θw = 0) were performed using a packed glass bead porous medium. The experimental information was used in building and validating a single-phase pore-scale flow model using the COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4 Software (base model). The simulated porosity (φ = 0.27) and absolute permeability (Ka = 74 mD) of the base model are in good agreement with those from the experiments (porosity φ = 0.30 and absolute permeability Ka = 68 mD). The simulated pressure drop and effective viscosity also compared fairly well with those obtained from the experiments (R2 = 0.98; and 0.83, respectively). Ultimately, the CFD results show that the water fraction of W/O emulsion increased the viscosity, which subsequently increased the pressure drop. In addition, it was confirmed that the injection velocity and the pore size affect the flow characteristics in the porous medium. Keywords Heavy oil emulsion · Non-Newtonian fluid · Water fraction · Porous media · CFD
1 Introduction Emulsion is frequently encountered in the petroleum industry and plays a significant role in the economy of oil production. Emulsions in the oilfield consist of water-in-oil (W/O) emulsion, oil-in-water (O/W) emulsion, and the complex ones [1–4]. Usually, the produced oil comes with water in the form of emulsions or dispersions of water droplets in oil—W/O [2, 5–7]. It holds that emulsion is formed through the action of a surface-active agent (known as surfactant) assisted by mixing force in destabilizing the interfacial tension between two immiscible liquids. In addition, due to mixing (and simultaneous movement of oil and water through the rock pore throat—see Fig. 1), the presence of the natural surfactants (asphaltene and resin) and clay, emulsion is usually formed during crude oil production [5, 8]. In addition, injection of chemicals and thermal fluid including steam, hot water, and solvent, during the recovery and * Olalekan S. Alade [email protected] 1
Department of Petroleum Engineering, College of Petroleum and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Minerals and Petroleum, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia
production of heavy oil, could instigate formation of emulsion, usually, W/O, which exhibits higher viscosity compared to the original oil [7–10]. Emulsions appear in many subsurface applications including enhanced oil recovery and conformance control [4, 5, 12, 13
Data Loading...
