Imperial College London
Alternate

DrRonnyPini

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering

Reader in Chemical Engineering
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7518r.pini Website

 
 
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Location

 

415ACE ExtensionSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Pini:2016:10.1017/jfm.2016.262,
author = {Pini, R and Vandehey, NT and Druhan, J and O'Neil, JP and Benson, SM},
doi = {10.1017/jfm.2016.262},
journal = {Journal of Fluid Mechanics},
pages = {558--587},
title = {Quantifying solute spreading and mixing in reservoir rocks using 3-D PET imaging},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2016.262},
volume = {796},
year = {2016}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - We report results of an experimental investigation into the effects of small-scale (mmcm)heterogeneities on solute spreading and mixing in a Berea Sandstone core. Pulsetracertests have been carried out in the regime Pe = 6 − 40 and are supplementedby a unique combination of two imaging techniques. X-ray CT is used to quantify subcorescale heterogeneities in terms of permeability contrasts at a spatial resolution ofabout 10 mm3, while [11C]PET is applied to image the spatial and temporal evolutionof the full tracer plume non-invasively. To account for both advective spreading andlocal (Fickian) mixing as driving mechanisms for solute transport, a streamtube model isapplied that is based on the 1D Advection Dispersion Equation. We refer to our modellingapproach as semi-deterministic, because the spatial arrangement of the streamtubes andthe corresponding solute travel times are known from the measured rock’s permeabilitymap, which required only small adjustments to match the measured tracer breakthroughcurve. The model reproduces the 3D PET measurements accurately by capturing thelarger-scale tracer plume deformation as well as sub-core scale mixing, while confirmingnegligible transverse dispersion over the scale of the experiment. We suggest that theobtained longitudinal dispersivity (0.10 ± 0.02 cm) is rock- rather than sample-specific,because of the ability of the model to decouple sub-core scale permeability heterogeneityeffects from those of local dispersion. As such, the approach presented here proves to bevery valuable, if not necessary, in the context of reservoir core analyses, because rocksamples can rarely be regarded as “uniformly heterogeneous”.
AU  - Pini,R
AU  - Vandehey,NT
AU  - Druhan,J
AU  - O'Neil,JP
AU  - Benson,SM
DO  - 10.1017/jfm.2016.262
EP  - 587
PY  - 2016///
SN  - 0022-1120
SP  - 558
TI  - Quantifying solute spreading and mixing in reservoir rocks using 3-D PET imaging
T2  - Journal of Fluid Mechanics
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2016.262
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/31660
VL  - 796
ER  -
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