Immiscible displacement investigation of heavy oil through porous media in the presence of ultrasonic waves

Notwithstanding numerous studies, fundamental of fluid flow through porous media with the presence of ultrasound waves are not well understood, especially for heterogeneous porous media and heavy crude oil. In this study, water flooding experiment has been performed with on heterogeneous artificial porous media (micromodel), that were saturated with crud oil initially and thereafter this experiment repeat in presence of ultrasound waves. The micromodel and rock-look alike pattern that has been used for experiments was designed based on one of Iranian reservoir rock core thin section. On the other hand fluid sample of Sarvak formation of a main Iranian’s oil fields has been candidate as heavy crude oil in those experiment. It has been observed that ultrasound waves improve the recovery of oil, which in the case of water injection scenario depending on wave frequency, the ultrasounds can profoundly improve the recovery efficiency up to ۱۷% in comparison to the absence of ultrasounds by peristaltic movement of oil on the pore walls and forming the ganglia in invading phase In fact, the peristaltic movement of oil droplets, caused by accentuated ultrasounds, led to the oil droplets coalescence in the pores that caused discontinuity in stationary fingers.

Keywords:

oil/gas reservoirs , petroleum engineering , petroleum transport/pipelines/ multiphase flow , porous media