Chemistry and Technology of Fuels and Oils

, Volume 52, Issue 2, pp 175–184 | Cite as

Experimental Study of Non-Darcy Two-Phase Flow in a Fractured – Vuggy Medium

Article

In order to study the characteristics of the flow regime, we conducted experiments on filtration of pure water and water/oil through an artificial fractured – vuggy medium. We found that both Darcy and non-Darcy flow can occur in a fractured – vuggy medium. After rewriting the Forchheimer equation, we calculated the inertial coefficient for different fracture widths and vug diameters. Based on the experimental studies, we also propose a new method for determining the flow regime for twophase flow using fractal theory.

Key words

non-Darcy flow Forchheimer equation inertial coefficient fractured vuggy medium 

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.MOE Key Laboratory of Petroleum EngineeringChina University of PetroleumBeijingChina
  2. 2.PetroChina Huabei Oilfield CompanyLangfangChina

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