Rheology of immiscible two-phase flow in mixed wet porous media: Dynamic pore network model and capillary fiber bundle model results

Abstract

Immiscible two-phase flow in porous media with mixed wet conditions was examined using a capillary fiber bundle model, which is analytically solvable, and a dynamic pore network model. The mixed wettability was implemented in the models by allowing each tube or link to have a different wetting angle chosen randomly from a given distribution. Both models showed that mixed wettability can have significant influence on the rheology in terms of the dependence of the global volumetric flow rate on the global pressure drop. In the capillary fiber bundle model, for small pressure drops when only a small fraction of the tubes were open, it was found that the volumetric flow rate depended on the excess pressure drop as a power law with an exponent equal to 3/2 or 2 depending on the minimum pressure drop necessary for flow. When all the tubes were open due to a high pressure drop, the volumetric flow rate depended linearly on the pressure drop, independent of the wettability. In the transition region in between where most of the tubes opened, the volumetric flow depended more sensitively on the wetting angle distribution function and was in general not a simple power law. The dynamic pore network model results also showed a linear dependence of the flow rate on the pressure drop when the pressure drop is large. However, out of this limit the dynamic pore network model demonstrated a more complicated behaviour that depended on the mixed wettability condition and the saturation. In particular, the exponent relating volumetric flow rate to the excess pressure drop could take on values anywhere between 1.0 and 1.8. The values of the exponent were highest for saturations approaching 0.5, also, the exponent generally increased when the difference in wettability of the two fluids were larger and when this difference was present for a larger fraction of the porous network.