Micro-scale analysis of immiscible displacement in porous media

FRANCISCA, FRANCO MATÍAS; MONTORO, MARCOS ALEXIS

Isla Margarita (Venezuela)

Congreso; Thirteen Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering; 2007

Sociedad Vnezolana de Geotecnia

Immiscible displacement depends on capillary, gravity and viscous forces. Capillary forces control menisci instability at micro-scale, restrict Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids (NAPL) recovery from porous media, and enhance residual saturation. At macro-scale, relative permeability is the most relevant property to analyze the displacement of immiscible fluids in porous media. In this work, a quasi-static pore scale network model is used to simulate wetting processes in porous media initially contaminated with NAPL. A new transparent cell is built to analyze ganglia generation in sand specimens during the immiscible displacement of paraffin oil by water. The influences of particle and pore size on the amount of ganglia in pore space and on residual saturation are established from numerical and experimental results.