Hydrocarbon production, gas recovery from shale, CO2 storage and water management have a common scientific underpinning: multiphase flow in porous media. This book provides a fundamental description of multiphase flow through porous rock, with emphasis on the understanding of displacement processes at the pore, or micron, scale. Fundamental equations and principal concepts using energy, momentum, and mass balance are developed, and the latest developments in high-resolution three-dimensional imaging and associated modelling are explored. The treatment is pedagogical, developing sound physical principles to predict flow and recovery through complex rock structures, while providing a review of the recent literature. This systematic approach makes it an excellent reference for those who are new to the field. Inspired by recent research, and based on courses taught to thousands of students and professionals from around the world, it provides the scientific background necessary for a quantitative assessment of multiphase subsurface flow processes, and is ideal for hydrology and environmental engineering students, as well as professionals in the hydrocarbon, water and carbon storage industries. Read more...
Cover
Half-title page
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of Symbols
1 Interfacial Curvature and Contact Angle
1.1 Interfacial Tension
1.2 Young-Laplace Equation
1.3 The Young Equation and Contact Angle
1.3.1 The Young Equation as an Energy Balance
1.3.2 Interfacial Tension, Roughness and Wettability
1.3.3 Capillary Rise
1.3.4 Historical Interlude: Thomas Young and the Marquis de Laplace
2 Porous Media and Fluid Displacement
2.1 Pore-Space Images
2.1.1 Statistical and Process-Based Pore-Space Reconstruction. 2.1.2 Definition of a Porous Medium, Representative Volumes, Porosity and Saturation2.2 Pore-Scale Networks and Topological Description
2.2.1 Transport Networks
2.2.2 Network Construction
2.2.3 Generalized Network Models
2.2.4 Topological Descriptors of the Pore Space
2.3 Wettability and Displacement
2.3.1 Thermodynamic Description of Displacement Processes
2.3.2 Displacement Sequences
2.3.3 Wettability and Wettability Change
2.3.4 Surface Roughness and Contact Angle Hysteresis
2.3.5 Effective Contact Angle and Curvature
3 Primary Drainage. 3.1 Entry Pressures and Fluid Configurations3.1.1 Wetting Layers
3.1.2 Entry Pressures for Irregular Throats
3.2 Macroscopic Capillary Pressure in Drainage
3.3 Bundle of Tubes Model and the Throat Size Distribution
3.3.1 Prediction of Capillary Pressure from Images
3.4 Invasion Percolation
3.4.1 Scaling Relations in Invasion Percolation
3.4.2 Displacement under Gravity and Gradient Percolation
3.4.3 Invasion Percolation, Normal Percolation and Flow
3.5 Final Saturation and Maximum Capillary Pressure
4 Imbibition and Trapping
4.1 Layer Flow, Swelling and Snap-Off. 4.1.1 Roof Snap-Off during Drainage4.2 Piston-Like Advance and Pore Filling
4.2.1 Piston-Like Throat Filling
4.2.2 Cooperative Pore Filling
4.2.3 Competition between Snap-Off and Cooperative Pore Filling
4.2.4 Frequency of Different Filling Events
Plates
4.2.5 Dynamics of Filling
4.2.6 Displacement as a Series of Metastable States
4.3 Displacement Patterns in Imbibition
4.3.1 Percolation with Trapping
4.3.2 Invasion Percolation with Trapping
4.3.3 Frontal Advance
4.3.4 Cluster Growth
4.3.5 Phase Diagrams for Capillary-Controlled Displacement. 4.3.6 Infiltration or Unstable Imbibition under Gravity4.4 Macroscopic Capillary Pressure
4.5 Interfacial Area
4.6 Capillary Trapping and Residual Saturation
4.6.1 Direct Imaging of Trapped Clusters andPercolation Theory
4.6.2 Effect of Initial Saturation
5 Wettability and Displacement Paths
5.1 Definitions and Capillary Pressure Cycles
5.2 Oil and Water Layers
5.2.1 Pinned Water Layers and Forced Snap-Off
5.2.2 Forced Water Injection and Oil Layer Formation
5.2.3 Recap of Displacement Processes
5.3 Capillary Pressures and Wettability Indices. 5.3.1 Wettability Trends and Relationships between Indices.
