Experimental and Analytical Investigation of Spontaneous Imbibition in Water-Wet Carbonates Academic Article

abstract

• 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. We perform co-current spontaneous imbibition ambient-condition experiments in three carbonates with a wide range of permeability under strongly water-wet conditions. We measure water saturation profiles as a function of distance and time in air-filled rocks with no initial water saturation using X-ray CT scanning. We demonstrate that the saturation profiles are functions of distance divided by the square root of time. We also demonstrate that the profiles are consistent with analytical solutions for imbibition in one dimension, and using reasonable estimates of relative permeability and capillary pressure, we can match the experimental results. We discuss how, in combination with conventional measurements of relative permeability (steady-state or using BuckleyLeverett theory in an unsteady-state experiment), the capillary pressure can be determined, or how the relative permeability can be determined from the spontaneous imbibition experiment and the capillary pressure.

authors

• Alyafei, Nayef

published proceedings

• Transport in Porous Media

altmetric score

• 4.6

author list (cited authors)

• Alyafei, N., Al-Menhali, A., & Blunt, M. J.

citation count

• 35

complete list of authors

• Alyafei, Nayef||Al-Menhali, Ali||Blunt, Martin J

publication date

• October 2016

publisher

• Springer Nature  Publisher

published in

• Transport in Porous Media  Journal

keywords

• 40 Engineering
• 4004 Chemical Engineering
• 4005 Civil Engineering
• 49 Mathematical Sciences
• 4901 Applied Mathematics

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

• 10.1007/s11242-016-0761-4

start page

• 189

end page

• 207

volume

• 115

issue

• 1

URL

• http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11242-016-0761-4