Pore-scale simulation of water pathway plugging using gel particles in oil reservoirs

Abstract

Multiphase flow with particles in porous media exists in a wide range of natural and engineering processes, such as water flooding for enhanced oil recovery and profile control with water pathway plugging. Although quite a few experimental and simulation studies have been conducted to investigate the multiphase flow with gel particles, and it’s still challenging to visualize and quantify the pore-scale flow process. This study, integrating the two-phase lattice Boltzmann model (LBM) with the immersed boundary method, modeled the flow of oil-water-deformable particle system in porous media. LBM is used to calculate the residual oil distribution in porous media after water flooding, and the immersed boundary method is coupled to consider the particle-fluid, particle-particle, and particle-wall interactions. The advantage of this coupled simulation is that the changes in residual oil distribution can be obtained in real-time while tracking particle migration and plugging. Results indicate that the injected deformable particles plug water dominant channels, diverting water flow into the low permeability zone and enhance oil recovery. The differences in the plugging process between the cooperative plugging by multiple particles and that by a single particle are illustrated. This study helps researchers better understand the multiphase flow in heterogeneous reservoirs during water flooding using gel particles.