Application of Pressure Drop Measurements in Filtration Function Determination Using Laboratorial Data

Abstract

During the injection of sea/produced water, permeability decline occurs, resulting in well impairment. Some mathematical models for deep bed filtration have been proposed and filtration coefficient and the formation damage coefficient are the two empirical parameters in all these formulations. These parameters should be determined from laboratory coreflood tests by forcing water with particles to flow through core samples. In two-point method, filtration coefficient is determined using particle concentration measurements of the core effluent; then, the formation damage coefficient is determined from inexpensive and simple pressure drop measurements. An alternative method, known as three-point method, utilizes pressure difference between the core ends plus an intermediate pressure point that is used to reduce the number of variants. Given pressure drop data in seawater coreflood laboratory experiments, solving for the filtration and formation damage coefficients is an inverse problem that determines only a combination of these two parameters, rather than each of them. Besides, some parameters like chemical kinetics and dispersion coefficient have special effect on the result depending on the range of their variations. The new features of both methods are used and range of their applicability is fully studied.