This work presents the validation and enhancement of existing correlations for estimating and predicting
the permeability in low permeability gas sands. The "original" problem of predicting the corrected or
"liquid equivalent" permeability has been under investigation since the early 1940s â in particular, using
the application of "gas slippage" theory to petrophysics by Klinkenberg.
In the first part of this work, the viability of the Jones-Owens and Sampath-Keighin correlations for
estimating the Klinkenberg-corrected (absolute) permeability from single-point, steady-state measurements
were investigated. We also provide an update to these correlations using modern petrophysical
data.
In the second part of this work we proposed and validated a new "microflow" model for the evaluation of
an equivalent liquid permeability from gas flow measurements. This work was based on a more detailed
application of similar concepts employed by Klinkenberg. In fact, we obtained the Klinkenberg result as
an approximate form of this result. A theoretical "microflow" result was given as a rational polynomial
(i.e., a polynomial divided by a polynomial) in terms of the Knudsen number (ratio of the mean free path
of the gas molecules to the characteristic flow length (typically the radius of the capillary)), and this result
can be applied as an explicit correlation device, or as an implicit prediction model (presuming the model is
tuned to a particular data set).
The following contributions are derived from this work:
â Validation and extension of the correlations proposed by Jones-Owens and Sampath-Keighin for low
permeability samples.
â Development and validation of a new "microflow" model which correctly represents the flow of gases
in low permeability core samples. This model is also applied as a correlation for prediction of the
equivalent liquid permeability in much the same fashion as the Klinkenberg model, although the new
model is substantially more theoretical (and robust) as compared to the Klinkenberg correction model.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/5846 |
| Date | 17 September 2007 |
| Creators | Florence, Francois-Andre |
| Contributors | Blasingame, Thomas A. |
| Publisher | Texas A&M University |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis, text |
| Format | 18818811 bytes, electronic, application/pdf, born digital |
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