Numerical study of the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off through porous media

Michele Starnoni; Dubravka Pokrajac

doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.10.030

Numerical study of the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off through porous media

Michele Starnoni, Dubravka Pokrajac

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Abstract

Snap-off is a pore-scale mechanism occurring in porous media in which a bubble of nonwetting phase displacing a wetting phase, and vice-versa, can break-up into ganglia when passing through a constriction. This mechanism is very important in foam generation processes, enhanced oil recovery techniques and capillary trapping of CO2 during its geological storage. In the present study, the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off are examined by simulating drainage in a single pore-throat constriction of variable cross-section, and for different pore-throat geometries. To model the flow, we developed a CFD code based on the Finite Volume method. The Volume-of-fluid
method is used to track the interfaces. Results show that the threshold contact angle for snap-off, i.e. snap-off occurs only for contact angles smaller than the threshold, increases from a value of 28◦ for a circular cross-section to 30-34◦
for a square cross-section and up to 40◦ for a triangular one. For a throat of square cross-section, increasing the viscosity of the injected phase results in a drop in the threshold contact angle from a value of 30◦ when the viscosity ratio µ is equal to 1 to 26◦ when µ = 20 and down to 24◦ when µ = 20.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	70-85
Number of pages	16
Journal	Advances in Water Resources
Volume	111
Early online date	16 Nov 2017
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.10.030
Publication status	Published - 1 Jan 2018

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgements
This work was jointly sponsored by EPSRC (EP/I010971/1) and NSFC China. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Maxwell compute cluster funded by the University of Aberdeen.

Keywords

numerical simulations
snap-off
contact angle
viscosity ratio
PLIC-VOF

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© 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Accepted author manuscript, 5.69 MBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND

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abstract = "Snap-off is a pore-scale mechanism occurring in porous media in which a bubble of nonwetting phase displacing a wetting phase, and vice-versa, can break-up into ganglia when passing through a constriction. This mechanism is very important in foam generation processes, enhanced oil recovery techniques and capillary trapping of CO2 during its geological storage. In the present study, the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off are examined by simulating drainage in a single pore-throat constriction of variable cross-section, and for different pore-throat geometries. To model the flow, we developed a CFD code based on the Finite Volume method. The Volume-of-fluidmethod is used to track the interfaces. Results show that the threshold contact angle for snap-off, i.e. snap-off occurs only for contact angles smaller than the threshold, increases from a value of 28◦ for a circular cross-section to 30-34◦for a square cross-section and up to 40◦ for a triangular one. For a throat of square cross-section, increasing the viscosity of the injected phase results in a drop in the threshold contact angle from a value of 30◦ when the viscosity ratio µ is equal to 1 to 26◦ when µ = 20 and down to 24◦ when µ = 20.",

keywords = "numerical simulations, snap-off, contact angle, viscosity ratio, PLIC-VOF",

author = "Michele Starnoni and Dubravka Pokrajac",

note = "Acknowledgements This work was jointly sponsored by EPSRC (EP/I010971/1) and NSFC China. The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the Maxwell compute cluster funded by the University of Aberdeen.",

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AU - Starnoni, Michele

AU - Pokrajac, Dubravka

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N2 - Snap-off is a pore-scale mechanism occurring in porous media in which a bubble of nonwetting phase displacing a wetting phase, and vice-versa, can break-up into ganglia when passing through a constriction. This mechanism is very important in foam generation processes, enhanced oil recovery techniques and capillary trapping of CO2 during its geological storage. In the present study, the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off are examined by simulating drainage in a single pore-throat constriction of variable cross-section, and for different pore-throat geometries. To model the flow, we developed a CFD code based on the Finite Volume method. The Volume-of-fluidmethod is used to track the interfaces. Results show that the threshold contact angle for snap-off, i.e. snap-off occurs only for contact angles smaller than the threshold, increases from a value of 28◦ for a circular cross-section to 30-34◦for a square cross-section and up to 40◦ for a triangular one. For a throat of square cross-section, increasing the viscosity of the injected phase results in a drop in the threshold contact angle from a value of 30◦ when the viscosity ratio µ is equal to 1 to 26◦ when µ = 20 and down to 24◦ when µ = 20.

AB - Snap-off is a pore-scale mechanism occurring in porous media in which a bubble of nonwetting phase displacing a wetting phase, and vice-versa, can break-up into ganglia when passing through a constriction. This mechanism is very important in foam generation processes, enhanced oil recovery techniques and capillary trapping of CO2 during its geological storage. In the present study, the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off are examined by simulating drainage in a single pore-throat constriction of variable cross-section, and for different pore-throat geometries. To model the flow, we developed a CFD code based on the Finite Volume method. The Volume-of-fluidmethod is used to track the interfaces. Results show that the threshold contact angle for snap-off, i.e. snap-off occurs only for contact angles smaller than the threshold, increases from a value of 28◦ for a circular cross-section to 30-34◦for a square cross-section and up to 40◦ for a triangular one. For a throat of square cross-section, increasing the viscosity of the injected phase results in a drop in the threshold contact angle from a value of 30◦ when the viscosity ratio µ is equal to 1 to 26◦ when µ = 20 and down to 24◦ when µ = 20.

KW - numerical simulations

KW - snap-off

KW - contact angle

KW - viscosity ratio

KW - PLIC-VOF

U2 - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.10.030

DO - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2017.10.030

M3 - Article

SN - 0309-1708

VL - 111

SP - 70

EP - 85

JO - Advances in Water Resources

JF - Advances in Water Resources

ER -

Numerical study of the effects of contact angle and viscosity ratio on the dynamics of snap-off through porous media

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

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