Prediction of immiscible two-phase flow properties in a two-dimensional Berea sandstone using the pore-scale lattice Boltzmann simulation.

Abstract

Immiscible two-phase flow in porous media is commonly encountered in industrial processes and environmental issues, such as enhanced oil recovery and the migration of fluids in an unsaturated zone. To deepen the current understanding of its underlying mechanism, this work focuses on the factors that influence the relative permeability and specific interfacial length of a two-phase flow in porous media, i.e., fluid saturation, viscosity ratio and contact angle. The lattice Boltzmann color-gradient model is adopted for pore-scale investigations, and the main findings are obtained as follows. Firstly, the relative permeability of each fluid increases as its saturation increases. The specific interfacial length first increases and then decreases as the saturation of the wetting fluid increases, and reaches a maximum when the permeabilities of both fluids are equal. Secondly, as the viscosity ratio of wetting to non-wetting fluids increases, the relative permeability of the wetting fluid will increase while that of the non-wetting fluid will decrease. The specific interfacial length will increase with increasing the viscosity difference between fluids. Finally, as the contact angle (measured from the wetting fluid) increases, the relative permeability of the wetting fluid overall increases while that of the non-wetting fluid decreases. Increasing contact angle always leads to a decrease in the specific interfacial length.