CFD investigation of nanoparticles/HPAM flooding in well-reservoir coupled system

the injection process of polymer containing silica and clay nanoparticles in an injection well was investigated using a computational fluid dynamics technique. The momentum and continuity equations were coupled with Darcy’s law and solved together to obtain the velocity and pressure profiles in the well and reservoir. Results showed that the pressure drop in the presence of silica nanoparticles is approximately 0.08% of the injection pressure for 200 meter of well length whereas it was 0.02% for clay nanoparticles. The pressure drop across well length was nor linear because of leakage to reservoir that reduce the amount of fluid and so reduce the pressure drop. Leakage rate for DCNP was also 4 times higher than DSNP case because of viscosity differences.

Keywords:

polymer flooding , nanoparticles , computational fluid dynamics