This study is to infer the wetting status of a realistic rock based on measured contact angles (CAs) in a Bentheimer sandstone after one drainage-imbibition cycle in a scCO2 flooding experiment. Much research indicated that the wettability of natural rocks was heterogeneous. The heterogeneous wettability of natural rocks was usually assumed to be either mixed wettability or fractional...
Most of the papers discussing pore scale simulation of reactive flow consider synthetic 2D geometry and/or simple reactions. On macroscale the engineers mostly use heuristically derived equations, for which the area of applicability is not clearly defined. Studies on the size of the Representative Elementary Volume, REV, are rarely presented for reactive flow, with effective coefficients...
Permeability of digital rock can be predicted by the pore-scale simulations based on the Navier-Stokes equation for rock characterization. Besides the complicated pore geometry, the main challenge is the large number of spatial grids/voxels needed to make the digital rock representative. The computational cost can thus be very high, even using the efficient Lattice Boltzmann method that has...
The Euclidean distance map which is widely employed in thinning, transformation, expanding and locating of extraction algorithms cannot described the porous media with pores of high aspect ratios, since the hierarchy of the void voxels cannot be distinguished clearly by the Euclidean distance map. To address this issue, we propose a pore network extraction method based on the concept of the...
Solvent Vapour extraction (Vapex) of bitumen from oil sands is a promising technology for in-situ bitumen recovery. It is analogous to steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) where solvent is used as a substitute to heat to reduce bitumen viscosity. In the Vapex process, two parallel wells are employed. Solvent is injected in the upper well and recovered diluted bitumen is produced from the...
Hydrocarbon transport in unconventional reservoir rocks remains poorly understood due to the presence of a wide range of pore sizes (from sub-nanometer to micrometers) and their complex spatial connectivity. In the present work, we combine hyper-resolution imaging techniques and image-based modeling to develop a novel hybrid pore network-continuum modeling framework for the flow and transport...
A number of geological and industrial materials present multiscale porous structures, such as Estaillades limestones, tight sandstones, and catalyst layers of some electrochemical devices（Gao et al., 2019; Mehmani and Balhoff, 2015; Bultreys et al., 2016）. In the context of a digital rock of multiscale porous structures, we may resolve macropores by the µCT imaging technique, while unresolved...
Gas hydrate contains abundant methane and is expected to be a promising energy supply to mitigate the influence of climate change in the future, in addition, it is also relevant to geological hazards. Permeability governs the gas production rate when extracting gas from hydrate deposits, which is a stress-dependent factor that varies while depressurizing the hydrate deposit. Probing the...
We consider simulation and upscaling of advective-diffusive transport processes based on a Lagrangian modelling approach. Our study leverages simulated Lagrangian particle trajectories in periodic three-dimensional pore-spaces. These trajectories are then exploited through an upscaling method that relies on a spatial Markov model, ultimately yielding prediction of the particle travel times and...
In interface coupled dissolution-precipitation (ICDP) systems, pore structures change following the dissolution of the primary mineral and the precipitation of the secondary mineral. In order to predict the dynamics of the mineral-fluid interface, it is important to understand the interplay between macroscopic flow regimes and microscopic reaction mechanisms (e.g., nucleation and crystal...
Non-isothermal reactive transport in complicated porous media is diverse in nature and industrial applications. This study focuses on coke combustion during in situ crude oil combustion techniques, which is an advanced recovery technique to exploit heavy oil in the fractured reservoir. There are challenges in modelling the multiple thermal and physicochemical processes in the multiscale...
Multiphase reactive transport in porous media is widely encountered in natural and engineering processes. Pore-scale modeling is an effective means to understand the mechanism of the multiphase reactive transport, but the related models still need development. In the present work, we proposed a multiphase mass transport numerical model based on the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method, referred to as...
Memory, hysteresis, and energy dissipation are related concepts that appear in nonequilibrium disordered systems, but the links between their microscopic origins and the resulting macroscopic properties remain elusive. Using the return-point memory of cyclic macroscopic trajectories, we formulate an accurate thermodynamic characterization of quasistatically-driven dissipative systems with...
The performance of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) is greatly influenced by the residual water content generated during the cell operation, and a comprehensive understanding of water management is critical for elevating the efficiency of PEMFCs [1]. The liquid accumulation at the interfacial gaps between PEMFC components account for a substantial part for water flooding which...
The control of the flow injected from the porous surface is crucial in transpiration cooling applications suitable for thermal protection systems (TPS) of hypersonic vehicles, where the features of the coolant flow entering the boundary layer can significantly affect the transition to turbulence as well as the turbulent mixing and the wall cooling effectiveness (Cerminara et al., 2020, 2021)....
Micro-CT imaging and pore-scale modelling have developed rapidly over the last decade by bridging the disciplines of geology, reservoir engineering, image processing, and computational fluid dynamics. They have provided new pathways for understating complex transport phenomena in underground geological formations and other porous media. However, there are several steps in this framework that...
We present a workflow for fast pore-scale simulation of single-phase flow in tight reservoirs typically characterized by low, multiscale porosity. Multiscale porosity implies that the computational domain contains porous voxels (unresolved porosity) in addition to pure fluid voxels. In this case, the Stokes-Brinkman equations govern the flow, with the Darcy term needed to account for the flow...
In this work, a multi-component multiphase lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is proposed and applied to convective drying of a dual-porosity porous medium at pore-scale. The pore-scale information can be directly resolved by the proposed numerical model. The drying dynamics are analyzed in detail in terms of pore-scale drying patterns, saturation profiles versus height, vapor concentration...
Pore-scale modelling is now routinely employed to investigate a wide range of applications such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen storage, fuel cells, geothermal energy and enhanced oil recovery. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software such as OpenFOAM, Comsol and Fluent are great tools to investigate these applications by simulating simple processes, such as single-phase flow,...
This talk will show the latest developments in Lagrangian/particle methods for the computation of complex fluid dynamics in real 3D geometries at the pore-scale. This involves the consideration of shear-thinning fluids from [2,5] and reactive solid rock matrix [1], using the Lagrangian transport developed in [2], whose physical considerations have been validated in [3].
These models couple...
Nucleation and growth of secondary mineral phases is of great importance in a variety of processes in different fields. Mineral precipitation alters the morphology and hydrodynamics of the porous media by blocking the pore and throats and changing the tortuosity and permeability of flow paths. Even reaction rates are affected by the reshaping of available reactive surfaces. Any mineral...
Understanding of moisture transport through cementitious porous media, such as concrete or mortar, is of great importance since it is directly related to degradation mechanisms and has great impact on durability of cement-based structures. Prediction of water transport throughout such a complex pore system is usually based on traditional models relying on a homogenization approach and requires...
The two paradigms of digital rock physics, chemistry, and biology are imaging and computation (Sadeghnejad et al. 2021). An unbiased characterization of rocks not only requires a sample with a sufficient volume (i.e., representative elementary volume, REV) to account for sample heterogeneity but also requires a high-resolution image with enough pore-scale details (Lin et al. 2019, Jackson et...
The global copper demand is rapidly increasing with the electrification of the energy sector, requiring new ore deposit discoveries and more efficient copper recovery. Copper leaching occurs in piles of low-grade ore aggregate also known as heaps, which typically contain 2-5% copper mostly associated with the mineral chalcopyrite (CuFeS2). The reagent for the dissolution of chalcopyrite is...
With climate change mitigation actions in place, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is by far the most industrially efficient technology to reach net-zero carbon emissions (HM Government, 2018), with current annual capture capacity exceeding 40 million tonnes of CO2 world-wide (BP, 2020). While supercritical CO2 is stored in conventional reservoirs or saline aquifers, overlying mudrock...
Pore-network model is a pore-scale modeling method, in which the complex pore space is represented by idealized geometries [1]. With the advantage of high computation efficiency and easy up-scaling, pore-network model has been widely used to simulate immiscible fluid displacement, reactive transport, phase change and heat transfer, and gas-water transport in proton exchange membrane....
In a d-dimensional porous medium, d+1 Minkowski functionals are required to fully characterize the status of two-phase immiscible fluids (1, 2). If fewer variables are available, which is practically common, the hysteresis effect emerges that disables unbiased estimation of fluid properties. Therefore, researchers are making major efforts to reduce the number of functionals under certain...
CO$_{2}$ storage and foam injection in hydrocarbon reservoirs involve three-phase processes in porous media where interactions between gas bubbles occur in the presence of both residual oil and water. Gas-bubble interactions by Ostwald ripening is a thermodynamic process where bubbles with higher chemical potential lose mass to those having a lower chemical potential. This mass transfer can...
It is well known that when compressible gas expands through a porous system, the flow may be choked at geometrically constricted paths, to limit mass flow rate if inlet and outlet pressure ratio exceeds a critical gas-specific limit, while induces shockwaves along with sharp variations in fluid thermophysical properties. Modelling such flow behaviours and their impacts in time on a porous...
Pore network models (PNM) are a simplified but powerful tool for fluid flow simulation in porous media. In contrast to other computational methods, e.g. the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM), where complex transport equations are solved with high structural resolution, PNM uses a strongly simplified basis. The realistic pore space is often approximated as a network of spherical pores connected by...
We prepare two porous samples and estimate their permeabilities using experiment and simulation. After comparing experimental and simulated permeabilities, we have identified a major flaw affecting many permeability measurements with out-of-sample pressure port placement.
Each sample is composed of densely packed 500-micron glass beads obtained from different manufacturers. A special care...
Mohamed Regaieg1*, Igor Bondino1, Clément Varloteaux2, Titly Farhana Faisal3, and Richard Rivenq1
1 TotalEnergies SE
2 Computational Hydrocarbon Laboratory for Optimized Energy Efficiency
3 Inria
Abstract
Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) on systems larger than few millimeters is too computationally demanding. Pore Network Modeling (PNM) is a practical way to study the flow at...
In pore-scale imaging, it is often not possible to visualize pores of all scales present in one experiment due to the resolution/sample size trade-off. This sub-resolution pore space for some rocks such as Estaillades or the reservoir sample is a significant fraction of the total porosity. We consider this sub-resolution pore space as the micro-porosity. Differential imaging makes it possible...
A thorough understanding of pore-scale modelling techniques is essential to flow through permeable media research. We compare two phase-flow simulations from the generalized network model (GNM) [Raeini et al, 2017, 2018] with a recently developed lattice-Boltzmann model (LBM) [Akai et al, 2018, 2020] for drainage and waterflooding in two samples — a synthetic beadpack and a micro-CT imaged...
Microporosity is present in many natural porous media. It can also be an intentionally designed component in manmade porous materials. Its impact on transport depends on various factors including the properties of the microporosity, the amount and placement within the main porous structure, and the type and regime of the transport process being considered. Modeling transport with microporosity...
This paper presents the results of the pore system digital characterization of glacial Upper Paleozoic clastic rocks in Saudi Arabia by employing high-resolution X-ray microscopy (XRM) and digital rock analysis workflows. Glacial sediments in this study are essentially devoid of clays and have undergone a complex burial history that manifests itself as a composite pore system. The objective of...
Salt precipitation in porous media is of central interest in several applications, such as the salt crystallization induced damages in building materials, the underground storage of CO2 or the evaporation process from soils and the soil salinization issue, to name only a few. When the salt precipitates inside a porous medium, the resulting salt structure is called subflorescence . The...
