Water Injection in Water-Wet Fractured Porous Media: Experiments and a New Model with Modified Buckley–Leverett Theory

Abstract

Summary This study examines water injection in water-wet fractured porous media and its modeling using the Buckley–Leverett theory. New experimental data on water injection in Berea and Austin chalk matrix block(s) are presented. Water injection in Austin chalk with a permeability of 0.01–0.04 md and porosity of 5% results in about 20% recovery from the rock matrix. In the second part of the paper, we use the Buckley–Leverett displacement in a dual-porosity model to simulate the literature data as well as experimental data from this work. A new model is devised for the simulation of water injection in fractured porous media. A major element of the new model is the multiplication of the transfer flux by the fracture saturation with a power of 1/2. This simple model can account for both cocurrent and countercurrent imbibition and computationally it is very efficient. The results of the proposed model and the fine-grid simulation are in good agreement with the experimental data.