InterPore2025

Quantification and modeling of pore-scale foam behavior

20 May 2025, 12:50

15m

Oral Presentation (MS06-A) Physics of multiphase flow in diverse porous media MS06-A

Speaker

Masa Prodanovic (The University of Texas at Austin)

Description

Foam diversion effect is potentially useful for mobility control in both dioxide storage and enhanced oil recovery processes in subsurface. The transport behavior of foam at pore scale in the porous media has thus far been mostly studied using micromodels (i.e. experimentally) and pore-scale numerical models have lagged behind.
We have recently introduced a pore-scale model for foam based on lattice Boltzmann method (Ma, Chang, and Prodanović 2024). The model is capable of capturing bubble nucleation and growth during the generation stage, followed by bubble deformation during flow owing to shear, as well as coalescence and trapping ascribed to solid wall roughness during. This model is able to import any imaged geometry (e.g. from micro-tomography) as the solid boundary. While we have mostly used the model in 2D, 3D model has been implemented alas it is computationally expensive.
We here focus on validating this model by direct comparison to two micromodel experiments, and find that the numerical results obtained in this work are accurate and in good agreement with the literature using the microfluidic device. We further investigate pressure buildup, foam texture, the influence of foam quality and capillary number on foam apparent viscosity during foam flow. Results also indicate that the calculated foam apparent viscosity is approximately five times higher than the water viscosity when traversing a smooth fracture. The simulations capture the effect of changing bubble size, capillary number, and pore geometry. We finally simulate foam behavior while approaching a system of two different, parallel fractures and show that higher bubble density helps boost foam diversion to fractures associated with larger apertures.