Published in

Cambridge University Press, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, (967), 2023

DOI: 10.1017/jfm.2023.500

Links

Tools

Export citation

Search in Google Scholar

Characteristics of fluid–fluid displacement in model mixed-wet porous media: patterns, pressures and scalings

This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.
This paper was not found in any repository, but could be made available legally by the author.

Full text: Unavailable

Green circle
Preprint: archiving allowed
Red circle
Postprint: archiving forbidden
Red circle
Published version: archiving forbidden
Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We study numerically the characteristics of fluid–fluid displacement in simple mixed-wet porous micromodels using a dynamic pore network model. The porous micromodel consists of distinct water-wet and oil-wet regions, whose fractions are varied systematically to yield a variety of displacement patterns over a wide range of capillary numbers. We find that the impact of mixed-wettability is most prominent at low capillary numbers, and it depends on the complex interplay between wettability fraction and the intrinsic contact angle of the water-wet regions. For example, the fractal dimension of the displacement pattern is a monotonically increasing function of wettability fraction in flow cells with strongly water-wet clusters, but it becomes non-monotonic with respect to wettability fraction in flow cells with weakly water-wet clusters. Additionally, mixed-wettability also manifests itself in the injection pressure signature, which exhibits fluctuations especially at low wettability fraction. Specifically, preferential filling of water-wet regions leads to reduced effective permeability and higher injection pressure, even at vanishingly small capillary numbers. Finally, we demonstrate that scaling analyses based on a weighted average description of the overall wetting state of the mixed-wet system can effectively capture the variations in observed displacement pattern morphology.