1887

Abstract

Summary

The fractional flow theory has been serving researchers and engineers for a long time as an analytical tool for gaining insights into the nature of fluid flow in permeable media. Its applications are diverse and range from fundamental and pedagogical objectives and do not end with benchmarking numerical simulators. The vertical equilibrium sharp-interface approach can be a decent way of tackling problems of intricate nature such as segregated CO2-water flow in vertically-heterogeneous media, which is typically what is encountered in geological CO2 storage (GCS) in aquifers. The petrophysical heterogeneity in such models is embedded into the vertically-averaged relative permeability curves, resulting in unconventional shapes that the practicing engineer may not encounter often. This paper derives analytical expressions of the vertically-averaged relative permeability curves of three canonical cases of stratifications: coarsening upward, fining upward, and aggrading, of different levels of heterogeneity. Based on them, we derive analytical frontal advance equations. The most interesting two observations include: piston-like displacement on large-scale, even if is not on fine-scale, and multiple shocks in the frontal advance. The paper concludes with an analytical expression of the injection-derived storage efficiency of CO2 in heterogeneous aquifers. Across the paper, analytical expressions are always compared against numerical models.

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.202321066
2023-11-14
2025-12-08

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References

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/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.202321066
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CO2-Water Fractional Flow Problems Arising from Sharp Interface Vertically-Averaged Relative Permeabilities of Heterogeneous Media
Conference Proceedings 2023, 1 (2023); https://doi.org/10.3997/2214-4609.202321066
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.202321066
/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.202321066
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