Simulation of Viscoelastic Fluid Flow in Micropore with Dead End

The flow characteristics of a nonlinear viscoelastic fluid in porous pores in reservoir with the dead ends are simulated numerically to find effects of fluids and flow character on the replacement ability of flooding fluid with dead oil in the dead ends. The contours of velocity and stream function and shear stress and pressure are drawn and micro-scale sweep efficiency is calculated qualitatively. The Oldroyd-B model has been used to describe the rheological properties of polymer solution. A finite-volume-based numerical approach has been used to solve the equations of motion and fluid constitutive equation for the steady, isothermal and incompressible fluid past through a two-dimensional micropore. The streamline plots showing the flow dynamic at different Reynolds and Debora numbers are presented graphically. The presented results show that the viscoelastic nature of the displacing polymer fluids can considerably improve the displacement efficiency in pores compared to the Newtonian and generalized Newtonian fluids which must be due to contribution of the normal forces. This conclusion could be very important in selecting polymer fluids and designing polymer flooding operation conditions.

Keywords:

polymer flooding , dead end , numerical , viscoelastic , Oldroyd-B