Applicability analysis of a simplified numerical model of water and oil slug flow through capillary tubes of non-uniform cross-section area

About the authors:

Sergei V. Stepanov, Senior Expert, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center, Tyumen, Russia; Dr. Sci. (Tech.), Professor, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center Specialized Department, School of Natural Sciences, University of Tyumen, Tyumen, Russia; svstepanov@tnnc.rosneft.ru

Georgii S. Bembel, Lead Specialist, Tyumen Petroleum Research Center; gsbembel@rosneft.ru

Aleksei Yu. Maksimov, Lead Engineer, CompMechLab® LLC, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University; eLibrary AuthorID, ORCID, maksimov@compmechlab.ru

Abstract:

In field development, the hydrodynamic simulation sufficiency and correctness of the relative permeability functions are a common concern, which is partly due to the limited amount of experimental data. Alternative (numerical estimation) methods of acquiring relative permeability curves are being developed to overcome these obstacles. The foundation of these methods is the understanding of the inner mechanics of multiphase flow through porous media.

The authors study the perspective of simplified modeling of two-phase flow in capillary channels as a basis for the development of an effective and phenomena-oriented method for calculating the relative permeabilities, as well as to analyze the area of applicability of the proposed algorithm and validate the assumptions necessary for the model’s correctness.

To evaluate the correctness of the data calculated with the proposed method, the authors compared analytical solutions for simple cases and the numerical simulation results with the data acquired with ANSYS Fluent for more complicated cases, which could not be solved analytically.

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