ISSN:
1573-1634
Keywords:
Porous medium model
;
two-phase flow
;
Darcy's law
;
relative permeabilities
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Geosciences
,
Technology
Notes:
Abstract An idealized model of a porous rock consisting of a bundle of capillary tubes whose cross-sections are regular polygons is used to assess the importance of viscous coupling or lubrication during simultaneous oil-water flow. Fluids are nonuniformly distributed over tubes of different characteristic dimension because of the requirements of capillary equilibrium and the effect of interfacial viscosity at oil-water interfaces is considered. With these assumptions, we find that the importance of viscous coupling depends on the rheology of the oil-water interface. Where the interfacial shear viscosity is zero, viscous coupling leading to a dependence of oil relative permeability on oil-water viscosity ratio for viscosity ratios greater than one is important for a range of pore cross-section shapes and pore size distributions. For nonzero interfacial shear viscosity, viscous coupling is reduced. Using values reported in the literature for crude oil-brine systems, we find no viscous coupling.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00614812
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