Imperial College London
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ProfessorMartinBlunt

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Chair in Flow in Porous Media
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 6500m.blunt Website

 
 
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Location

 

2.38ARoyal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Alhosani:2020:10.1103/physreve.102.023110,
author = {Alhosani, A and Scanziani, A and Lin, Q and Foroughi, S and Alhammadi, AM and Blunt, MJ and Bijeljic, B},
doi = {10.1103/physreve.102.023110},
journal = {Physical Review E},
pages = {023110  1--023110  15},
title = {Dynamics of water injection in an oil-wet reservoir rock at subsurface conditions: Invasion patterns and pore-filling events},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physreve.102.023110},
volume = {102},
year = {2020}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - We use fast synchrotron x-ray microtomography to investigate the pore-scale dynamics of water injection in an oil-wet carbonate reservoir rock at subsurface conditions. We measure, in situ, the geometric contact angles to confirm the oil-wet nature of the rock and define the displacement contact angles using an energy-balance-based approach. We observe that the displacement of oil by water is a drainagelike process, where water advances as a connected front displacing oil in the center of the pores, confining the oil to wetting layers. The displacement is an invasion percolation process, where throats, the restrictions between pores, fill in order of size, with the largest available throats filled first. In our heterogeneous carbonate rock, the displacement is predominantly size controlled; wettability has a smaller effect, due to the wide range of pore and throat sizes, as well as largely oil-wet surfaces. Wettability only has an impact early in the displacement, where the less oil-wet pores fill by water first. We observe drainage associated pore-filling dynamics including Haines jumps and snap-off events. Haines jumps occur on single- and/or multiple-pore levels accompanied by the rearrangement of water in the pore space to allow the rapid filling. Snap-off events are observed both locally and distally and the capillary pressure of the trapped water ganglia is shown to reach a new capillary equilibrium state. We measure the curvature of the oil-water interface. We find that the total curvature, the sum of the curvatures in orthogonal directions, is negative, giving a negative capillary pressure, consistent with oil-wet conditions, where displacement occurs as the water pressure exceeds that of the oil. However, the product of the principal curvatures, the Gaussian curvature, is generally negative, meaning that water bulges into oil in one direction, while oil bulges into water in the other. A negative Gaussian curvature provides a topological quantification of th
AU  - Alhosani,A
AU  - Scanziani,A
AU  - Lin,Q
AU  - Foroughi,S
AU  - Alhammadi,AM
AU  - Blunt,MJ
AU  - Bijeljic,B
DO  - 10.1103/physreve.102.023110
EP  - 1
PY  - 2020///
SN  - 2470-0045
SP  - 023110
TI  - Dynamics of water injection in an oil-wet reservoir rock at subsurface conditions: Invasion patterns and pore-filling events
T2  - Physical Review E
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physreve.102.023110
UR  - https://journals.aps.org/pre/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevE.102.023110
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/81912
VL  - 102
ER  -
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