Two-phase fluid flow in geometric packing.

Abstract

We investigate how a plug of obstacles inside a two-dimensional channel affects the drainage of high viscous fluid (oil) when the channel is invaded by a less viscous fluid (water). The plug consists of an Apollonian packing with, at most, 17 circles of different sizes, which is intended to model an inhomogeneous porous region. The work aims to quantify the amount of retained oil in the region where the flow is influenced by the packing. The investigation, carried out with the help of the computational fluid dynamics package ANSYS-FLUENT, is based on the integration of the complete set of equations of motion. The study considers the effect of both the injection speed and the number and size of obstacles, which directly affects the porosity of the system. The results indicate a complex dependence in the fraction of retained oil on the velocity and geometric parameters. The regions where the oil remains trapped is very sensitive to the number of circles and their size, which influence in different ways the porosity of the system. Nevertheless, at low values of Reynolds and capillary numbers Re<4 and n(c)≃10(-5), the overall expected result that the volume fraction of oil retained decreases with increasing porosity is recovered. A direct relationship between the injection speed and the fraction of oil is also obtained.