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A numerical study on the impact of thermal alterations in porous media during hot fluid injection process employing a modified Boussinesq model

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Abstract

The Oberbeck-Boussinesq (OB) approximation is widely employed as a simplifying assumption for density-dependent flow problems. It reduces the governing differential equations to simpler forms, which can be handled analytically or numerically. In this study, a modified OB model is formulated to account for the variation of rock permeability and porosity with temperature during the hot fluid injection process in an oil-saturated porous medium under the assumption of local thermal equilibrium (LTE). The mathematical model is solved numerically using a fully implicit control volume finite difference discretization with the successive over relaxation (SOR) method to handle the non-linearity. Subsequently, the numerical model is validated with the analytical solution of the simplified problem successfully. Through detailed sensitivity analyses, the simulation results reveal the hot fluid injection rate as the most important operational parameter to be optimized for a successful thermal flood. The numerical runs show that that for single-phase core-flood simulation, the effect of temperature on the rock absolute permeability and porosity can be neglected without introducing any significant errors in the estimated recovery and temperature profile.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge the support provided by King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST), through the Science and Technology Unit at King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), for funding this work through project no. 11-OIL1661-04, as part of the National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan (NSTIP).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Petroleum Engineering, College of Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Eastern Province, 31261, Saudi Arabia

    Abiola D. Obembe

  2. Statoil Chair in Reservoir Engineering, Department of Process Engineering, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, A1B 3X9, Canada

    M. Enamul Hossain

  3. Department of Mechanical Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran, Eastern Province, 31261, Saudi Arabia

    Ben-Mansour Rached

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  1. Abiola D. Obembe
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  2. M. Enamul Hossain
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  3. Ben-Mansour Rached
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Correspondence to M. Enamul Hossain.

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Obembe, A.D., Hossain, M.E. & Rached, BM. A numerical study on the impact of thermal alterations in porous media during hot fluid injection process employing a modified Boussinesq model. Comput Geosci 22, 63–80 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-017-9670-z

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