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Abstract. Relative permeability and
capillary pressure functions define how much oil can be recovered and
at what rate. These functions, in turn, depend critically on the
geometry and topology of the pore space, on the physical
characteristics of the rock grains and the fluids, and on the
conditions imposed by the recovery process. Therefore, imaging and
characterizing the rock samples and the fluids can add crucial insight
into the mechanisms that control field-scale oil recovery. When the
fundamental equations of immiscible flow in the imaged samples are
solved, one can elucidate how relative permeability and capillary
pressure functions depend on wettability, interfacial tension and the
interplay among viscous, capillary and gravitational forces. This
paper summarizes the development of a complete quasi-static pore
network simulator of two-phase flow, "ANetSim," and its
validation against Statoil's state-of-the-art proprietary simulator.
Most equations presented in this paper are new; therefore, repetition
of the published Statoil results is kept to a minimum. In particular,
the hydraulic conductance correlations in two-phase flow, and the
model of cooperative pore body filling are new. ANetSim has been
implemented in MATLABâ
and it can run on any platform. Three-dimensional, disordered networks
with complex pore geometry have been used to calculate primary
drainage and secondary imbibition capillary pressures and relative
permeabilities. The results presented here agree well with the Statoil
simulations and experiments. |