Flow of a drop through a constricted capillary using Lattice Boltzmann Method
Mariana Luisa de Lima Torquato1; Marcio da Silveira Carvalho1; - Raquel Quadros Velloso1; - Eurípedes do Amaral Vargas Jr.1
1 Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio)
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-1280
Resumo
Oil-in-water emulsions have been considered as a potential EOR method in the last thirty years. Microemulsion flow in porous medium causes an increase in the pressure drop, caused by a viscous effect related to the replacement of the continuous phase by a higher viscosity liquid dispersed phase and by a capillary effect related to the deformation of the interface between the two liquids. The increased pressure drop represents a mobility reduction of the water phase, which contributes to a more efficient areal sweep of the reservoir, a lower residual oil saturation and consequently, a higher recovery factor. Using constricted capillaries as a model for the geometry of a pore throat connecting two adjacent pore bodies, experiments and numerical analysis using level-set / finite element method have already been performed in order to verify the effect of capillary geometry, flow conditions, liquid properties and drop size on the flow behavior. Lattice-Boltzmann methods, considered as a mesoscopic approach, present a good compromise between standard "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches. With simple models describing the scattering of discrete particles confined to a lattice, it has been presented as a powerful tool for modeling multiphase flow through complicated geometries. This work describes the results of the implementation of a Lattice-Boltzmann method in modeling of a drop flow through a constricted capillary. The results are compared to experimental and numerical results available in the literature.
Palavras-chave: Emulsion modelling; Lattice-Boltzmann method; EOR; Porous media