Reservoir Engineering
1. Feasible to capture the transition between (a) and (b) @ laboratory-scale?
(a) where, an oil phase gets disconnected into blobs (and remain strongly influenced by local pressure field near a flood front, which mostly remain to be transient - even in a steady-state displacement process); and remain trapped and the way the oil/water menisci gets migrated @ pore-scale;
(b) where, continuous mobility of water/oil/gas phases occur @ macroscopic-scale, where averaged quantities are both interpolated as well as extrapolated?
2. If displacement of oil from water-wet porous sedimentary rock by water-flooding leads to an entrapment of a considerable fraction of oil, then,
would it remain feasible to capture the role of buoyancy and inertial forces in addition to the interplay between capillary and viscous forces @ laboratory-scale?
3. If pore-level displacement is initiated by an externally imposed flow, then, how exactly to capture the complex interplay between local topology and pore-scale geometry with capillarity along with the complex interplay between buoyancy, inertial and viscous forces?
Even, if we manage to capture such complex physics, how could we capture the spontaneous rupture of an oil neck (choke-off) and its associated spontaneous withdrawal of head meniscus out of a pore body @ lab-scale?
4. Can we deduce the details on the length distribution of blobs towards determining the oil recovery efficiency upon mobilizing the entrapped oil blobs by lowering IFT @ lab-scale?
If each curved meniscus supports a difference in oil and water pressure resulting from its associated IFT, then, would it remain feasible to distinguish the interface between oil and water within a water-wet reservoir into zones that consists of a meniscus which essentially obey Young-Laplace equation of capillary hydrostatics; and those zones that connect the menisci (zones of positive/negative Gaussian curvatures associated with the menisci of oil-water interface) @ laboratory-scale?
If so, how exactly the physics of thin films along with capillary hydrostatics will be up-scaled to Darcy-scale?
5. In EOR applications, whether any meniscus would be able to move by spontaneously developing excess capillary pressure that would cause oil to flow?
6. Feasible to ensure that a jump (when a pore body gets evacuated of oil and filled with water) remains more likely to be upstream than downstream, which would make the displacement front more stable, while oil entrapment remaining less frequent @ lab-scale?
7. If displacement of oil or any non-wetting fluid from an initially saturated porous medium by water or any wetting fluid consists of advancement of head menisci (jumps); consequent break-offs and choke-offs of neck menisci; and creation of isolated oil or non-wetting fluid blobs in the process, which remain to be deterministic and reproducible, then, can we replicate the above physics @ lab-scale?
It is possible to deduce some information about the length distribution of oil blobs entrapped in a porous medium by mobilizing them at the lab-scale using methods such as lowering the interfacial tension (IFT). However, accurately determining the length distribution of these blobs may be challenging and may require additional analysis techniques.
When mobilizing entrapped oil blobs, reducing the IFT can help to reduce capillary forces that hold the blobs in place and allow them to be mobilized more easily. By observing the mobilization process, you can gain insights into the behavior of the oil blobs. However, directly measuring the length distribution of the mobilized blobs can be difficult.
To estimate the length distribution, you may need to employ imaging techniques such as microscopy or advanced imaging methods like X-ray microcomputed tomography (micro-CT). These techniques can provide visual information about the size and shape of the mobilized blobs, allowing you to analyze their length distribution.
Additionally, you can use image analysis software to analyze the obtained images and extract quantitative data on the length distribution of the mobilized blobs. This analysis may involve measuring the length of individual blobs or characterizing the blob population statistically.
Keep in mind that analyzing the length distribution of oil blobs at the lab-scale provides insights into the behavior of entrapped oil in controlled conditions. However, the results may not directly represent the behavior of oil blobs in real-world reservoirs, as they can be influenced by various factors such as rock properties, fluid composition, and reservoir heterogeneity. Therefore, it's important to consider the limitations and assumptions of the lab-scale experiments when interpreting the results and applying them to larger-scale scenarios. (ChatGPT)