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An Investigation into the Non-Newtonian Behavior of Polymer Flow in Porous Medium
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 78th EAGE Conference and Exhibition 2016, May 2016, Volume 2016, p.1 - 5
Abstract
Polymer injection has been of great interest in petroleum engineering as an enhance oil recovery (EOR) method. In order to have a reliable injection plan, an accurate estimation of polymer behaviour is required to control the fluid flow in porous media. However it is difficult to predict the flow properties of polymer solutions - known as non-Newtonian fluids – due to variable viscosity at different shear rates. In the present work, pore network modelling has been used to investigate the behaviour of polymer solutions in porous media. A pore network is constructed which adequately represents the real structure of porous medium. The network parameters are tuned to match the experimental properties of reservoir rock samples reported in the experiments. To calculate the non-Newtonian apparent viscosity, an iteration method has been applied since the viscosity is a function of shear rate while the viscosity should be known to determine the shear rate. The estimated non-Newtonian viscosities are in good agreement with the experimental data. Finally, the effects of polymer adsorption on variable viscosity of polymer solutions has been investigated. The results reveals that the apparent viscosity highly depends on the pore radius which can be reduced because of the polymer adsorption.