A literature review of strength and stability of foam and their relationship with the absolute permeability of porous media

Abstract

The flow dynamics of foam in porous media during enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and aquifer remediation is an area of active research. Foam performance therein is dependent on the strength and stability of the foam. Limiting capillary pressure, apparent viscosity, texture, mobility reduction factor, resistant factor, and trapped gas saturation are often used as indicators of foam strength and stability. However, there are contradictory reports on the direction of the correlation between foam strength and the absolute permeability of porous media. Some literature reported that foam strength increases with decrease in permeability and vice versa, while some others reported an opposite trend. Since foam transport in porous media is a vast field of research, this paper focuses only on the review of the parameters often used in the literature to characterize strength and stability of foam, and the correlations between these parameters and the absolute permeability of reservoir rocks. We highlighted sources of contradictions, mainly the interchangeable use of the mentioned performance indices to describe foam strength and stability, and sometimes the failure to differentiate between strength and stability of foam. Appropriate clarifications are made based on published data and we highlighted areas that require further research.