Multiphase Dispersion and Relative Permeability Experiments

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Abstract
Experiments in both Berea sandstone and sandpacks have been conducted to measure dispersion and steady-state relative permeabilities. Measurements have been made on both high-tension brine/oil and a low-tension, three-phase, brine/oil/surfactant/alcohol mixture. One interesting aspect of these experiments is the amount of microemulsion phase trapping. The endpoint microemulsion saturations for both the oil/microemulsion and brine/micro-emulsion phase pairs were high even at 10−3 dyne/cm [10−3 mN/m] interfacial tension (IFT). The dispersion was measured for each phase with radioactive and chemical tracers. The dispersivity was found to be a strong function of phase, phase saturation, porous medium, and IFT. Values of the dispersivity varied by two orders of magnitude over conditions investigated to date. Extremely early breakthrough of the tracer used in the oil phase (carbon 14) at high tension is especially remarkable. The brine tracer (tritium) curves were similar to that for 100% brine saturation except for a shift caused by material balance reasons. The classical solution to the convection-diffusion equation for single-phase flow has been generalized to multiphase flow and was used to aid in interpreting these data. This combination of relative permeability and dispersion in each phase of the experiment with a high-concentration, three-phase-microemulsion sulfonate formulation is believed to be new, and more directly applicable to commercial surfactant flooding than previously reported experimental results.

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