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Compositional gravity drainage 2: experimental measurements using an analog system

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Abstract

Gravity drainage with fluid phases that are not in chemical equilibrium is determined by the interplay of gravitational forces, capillary forces, and compositional effects. In Part 1, we obtained analytic solutions for capillary/gravity equilibrium for a three-component two-phase system with parallel tie lines, and were able to obtain the recovery and final component distributions for arbitrary initial and displacing phases Bond numbers. Here, we perform compositional drainage experiments using an analog brine/isopropanol/iso-octane system (with non-parallel tie lines) in which we measure the distributions of the components after 3 weeks of drainage and the total recovery of wetting phase. The results are compared to predictions using the capillary/gravity equilibrium (CGE) theory in Part 1, and also a solution for pure advection of two-phase, three-component mixtures. We find that for condensing drainages that CGE provides the best description of the drainage, and that for vaporizing drainages a pure advection model provides the best description. The reasons for differences can be understood in terms of the assumptions that are the basis for the CGE and pure advection models.

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Abbreviations

C A :

Volume fraction of the alcohol component

CGE:

Capillary/gravity equilibrium

G :

Gravitational constant

\(J^{-1}\) :

Inverse Leverett J-function

K l :

Diffusion constant

L :

Length over which the drainage is operating

\(N_{\rm B}^{-1}\) :

Inverse Bond number

P c :

Capillary pressure

r t :

Throat radius

S r :

Residual saturation of the wetting phase

Z :

Vertical distance (positive upward)

η:

Tie line parameter

λ:

Corey exponent for Leverett J-function

ρ j :

Density of phase j

Δρ:

Density difference between the wetting and non-wetting phases

σ:

Interfacial tension

j :

Phase

W:

Wetting

N:

Non-wetting

d:

Displacing phase

i:

Initial phase

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Sedimentation Laboratory, Oxford, Mississippi, 38655, USA

    David A. DiCarlo

  2. Department of Petroleum Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305-2220, USA

    Kristian Jessen & Franklin M. Orr Jr.

Authors
  1. David A. DiCarlo
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  2. Kristian Jessen
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  3. Franklin M. Orr Jr.
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Correspondence to David A. DiCarlo.

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DiCarlo, D.A., Jessen, K. & Orr, F.M. Compositional gravity drainage 2: experimental measurements using an analog system. Transp Porous Med 69, 159–174 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-006-9054-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-006-9054-7

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