Reservoir Fluid Dynamics – CO2 Sequestration
1. Can we characterize a deep saline aquifer to have separate streamlines, corresponding to the path of brine-particles and CO2-particles as it moves through the aquifer?
If so, can we map the flow of brine and CO2, through the aquifer, by drawing a series of streamlines, following the paths of the particles of brine and CO2?
2. Whether the flow of brine and CO2 will keep changing with time, at every point, within the aquifer?
3. Whether the ‘instantaneous velocity’ of brine and CO2 particles would always remain ‘tangent’ to the streamlines, in a deep saline aquifer?
4. Can we represent the ‘Rate of CO2 Flow’ & ‘Rate of Brine Flow’ by the density of streamlines (the number of streamlines passing through a surface of unit area - normal to the direction of CO2 and brine flow)? Feasible to interpret the ‘rapidity or slow-down of the moving CO2’ from the nature of ‘closeness of the streamlines’?
5. Since, CO2 remains highly compressible; and there are several places within the aquifer, where the CO2 can be stored and trapped, whether, the volume of CO2, which flows through, any plane, normal to the streamlines, in any interval of time, could remain the SAME everywhere, within the aquifer?
6. Whether the velocity of both CO2 & brine, at any point, within the aquifer, would remain inversely proportional to the cross sectional area of the ‘pay zone thickness’?
7. Any possibility of ‘circulation’ of either brine or CO2, or both, about any point, near the wellbore space (when, inertial forces remain dominant)?
Whether the flow of both brine & CO2 would remain as ‘lamellar’ in the vicinity of a wellbore?
8. Whether the ‘mechanical energy’, associated with the ‘work done’ on a deep saline aquifer, remain ‘conserved’, in the absence of any loss of mechanical energy due to friction, during the movement of CO2 & brine, in the vicinity of the injection well?
9. During CO2 injection, at any two points along a streamline, in the vicinity of injection well, whether, the sum of the pressure, the potential energy of unit volume of brine/CO2, and the kinetic energy of a unit volume of brine/CO2 – will have the SAME magnitude (having known the fact that Bernoulli’s theorem holds good only for frictionless, incompressible and streamline flow)?
When both CO2 & brine – associated with a deep saline aquifer – cannot be described by – steady frictionless flow, then, how can we express the principle of ‘conservation of energy’ using Bernoulli’s theorem?
Whether the work done – which got converted to heat energy – through the action of internal friction (the effects of viscosity) in an aquifer – can be ignored?
Suresh Kumar Govindarajan
Professor (HAG) IIT Madras
https://home.iitm.ac.in/gskumar/
https://iitm.irins.org/profile/61643
30-July-2024
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