Capillary Network Model of Polymeric Solution Flow in Porous Media

Lucas Sales Pereira Bartolomeu¹; Marcio da Silveira Carvalho¹

¹ Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)

doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-0309

Resumo

Injection of a polymer solution is used in many applications to increase the viscosity of the water phase and therefore reduce the high mobility ratio during oil displacement in a porous media. Experimental evidences have also shown that the viscoelastic behavior of some polymer solution may contribute to a better pore level oil displacement, reducing the residual oil saturation. This pore level behavior is not clearly understood. Modeling viscoelastic flow of polymeric solution in porous media is extremely challenging. The macroscopic flow behavior is directly associated with the extensional dominant flow through pore throats that form the porous media. Accurate models should be able to describe the extensional thickening effect observed in the flow of dilute high molecular weight polymer solutions. The model developed in this work is based on the flow rate-pressure drop relation of polymer solution flow through constricted capillaries that serves as a simple model of the geometry of pore throats. A two-dimensional capillary network model is constructed in order to obtain macroscopic parameters from up scaling of the microscopic behavior. Results show the effect of different rheological parameters on the macroscopic flow behavior.

Palavras-chave: polymeric solution; porous media; capillary network model; mobility control; viscoelastic behavior