InterPore2018 New Orleans

Toward direct pore-scale reactive modelling of low-salinity flooding in 2D/3D porous media images

15 May 2018, 18:30

15m

New Orleans

Poster MS 4.18: Coupling multi-physic at the pore-scale: experimental and numerical investigation Poster 2

Speaker

Julien Maes (Heriot-Watt University)

Description

We present a two-phase multicomponent reactive pore-scale model based on Direct Numerical Simulation of the Navier-Stokes equations using the Volume-Of-Fluid and the Continuous Species Transfer methods. In order to study wettability change during low-salinity flooding, simple upscaling rules from the nano-scale to the pore-scale are integrated to the model to describe (1) change of local contact angle with change of electrical double layer potential, (2) effect of ionic transport and electrical field in the water thin film and (3) ganglion remobilization due to build-up of osmotic pressure in the thin film. We show that our model can be fitted to match experimental results of oil recovery by low-salinity effect. We then investigate the impact of each mechanism on the increase of oil recovery during low-salinity flooding in 2D/3D porous media images.