Modeling subsurface particle transport and retention is important for many processes, including sand production, fines migration, and nanoparticle injection. In this study, a pore-scale particle plugging simulator is concurrently coupled with a streamline reservoir simulator to predict the behavior of particles in the subsurface. The coupled simulators march forward in time together. The automated communication between the two models enables the prediction of spatially and time dependent parameters that control the particle transport process. At each time step, the reservoir simulator provides the inlet velocity and particle concentration of the fluid suspension to the pore-scale model which outputs the permeability, porosity, and retention coefficient. This permits the reservoir simulator to include pore-scale physics at selected locations to determine the number of particles retained and the formation damage. The pore-scale simulator tracks the path of individual particles as they are simultaneously injected into the sample and produces an effluent particle concentration curve that is fit with a continuum-scale advection-dispersion model. The advection-dispersion model is matched to the pore-scale data by adjusting two parameters: the dispersion and retention coefficient. The retention coefficient dictates the number of particles retained across a grid block in the reservoir simulator. Incorporating fundamental pore-scale physics into the streamline reservoir simulator improves its predictive ability by updating the particle retention and formation damage of a grid block at each time step.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-07052015-150818 |
| Date | 09 July 2015 |
| Creators | French, Layne Bryan |
| Contributors | Thompson, Karsten, Hughes, Richard, Zeidouni, Mehdi |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-07052015-150818/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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