1. Construction of a two phase flow in porous media experiment and design of relative
permeabilities diagram
Chapter 1
Two phase flow and general characteristics
• Porosity
• Permeability
• Viscosity
• Interfacial tension
• Capillary pressure
• Rel. Perm. Diagrams
• Etc.
Chapter 2
Petroleum and Recovery Methods
• Petroleum Formation
• Petroleum traps
• Reservoir drive mechanisms
• Recovery methods
Chapter 3
Laboratory measurement
Chapter 4
Relative permeability test
Chapter 5
Simulation of the experiment using Comsol
Multiphysics
In chapter 5 Comsol Multiphysics was
used to model our experiment and
compare our results with our lab
experiment. Firstly we designed the
geometry of the core and the fluids and
porous media properties. Secondly we
inserted data from experiment (as the
experiment failed we used data from an
other project). Final step was to
compare the lab and the simulations
results.
Construction of the experiment:
In this chapter the construction of the two phase flow experiment is described.
First the frame where the experiment did take place was constructed. The frame
was 3m tall and 50cm wide. Next the core was constructed; the cylinder used
was 29cm wide and 100cm tall. At the top and the bottom of the cylinder acrylic
plates were used, metallic rods were used to keep them in place. The cylinder
was filled with sand, two layers of shingle were used at the top and the bottom
to avoid the end effects when fluids would flow through the core. On top of the
core two positive displacement pumps were used to inject the fluids (oil-water)
in the core. The pumps were designed to have a constant flow rate when steady
state conditions were reached. The pumps were supplied with fluids from two
24L containers.
Experiment failure & Improvements suggestions:
First stage of the experiment was to saturate the core with water. The water
pump was injecting water in the core. After several hours the pressure that built
up in the core led to the experiment failure. The bottom cylinder was detached
from the cylinder. The technique of using acrylic plates and gluing them on the
cylinder was the reason that the experiment failed. The acrylic plates needs to
be replaced by steel plates which will not be deformed. In the centre of the
plates a circle will be curved with the diameter and the thickness of the cylinder.
Glue will not be used and the cylinder will be sealed with rubber washers.
• Grain size analysis
• Permeability test
• Particle density test
• Bulk density test
• Liquid density test
Introduction
Petroleum is one of the most important sources of energy because of its
high efficiency and it’s relatively low cost of production. As the shallow
reserves were depleted engineers started exploring deeper formations
which were harder to find and also harder to produce. This was one of
the main reasons of the development of the two phase flow in porous
media and later the examination of the two phase-relative permeabilities
diagrams.
For this project we designed an experiment of two phase flow in porous
media, where oil and water were pumped in a core of sand. The main
purpose of this experiment was to design the relative permeabilities
diagram for the set of the two fluids (vegetable oil-water) and the porous
media (sand).
Conclusion:
The main purpose of this project was to design and run a two-phase flow in porous media experiment. The experiment was designed to create a relative
permeabilities diagram and the results we would get would be compared with the simulation modeling designed on Cosmol Multiphysics. As the experiment
failed due to technical problems improvements are suggested which other students can follow and run successfully the experiment.