Experimental Investigation of Capillarity and Drainage Height Roles in the Vapor Extraction Process

Abstract

The authors present the results of a novel comprehensive experimental program to investigate the roles of capillary pressure and drainage height on the performance of the VAPEX process. Measured stabilized drainage rates at lower permeability range (5.1–6.4 D) in this study show no linear relationship with square root of permeability, as reported for experiments at high permeabilities (>200 D). In these tests stabilized drainage rates are a function of drainage height to the power of 1.1–1.3.