Experimetal Study and Numerical Modelling of the Effect of Foaming AgentProperties on Foam Flooding in Porous Media in Absence of Oleic Phase

摘要

This paper presents an investigation on the effect of foaming agents perpropeties in tetms of surfactantconcentration,interfacial tension(IFT)and foam strength during foam flooding in porous media in theabsence of oleic phase.The experiments consisted of the co-injection of gas and various surfactant solutionswith three different formulation properties in terms of IFT reduction and foaming strength capability intoBentheimer sandstone samples initially saturated with the surfactant solution.Experiments were performedusing Bentheimer sandstone cores during,where X-ray CT images were taken during foam generation tofind out the stability of advancing front of foam propagation and to map the gas saturation for both thetransient and steady-state flow regimes.Then,a series of numerical simulation was conducted to investigate the effect of surfactant concentrationon pressure drop across the core for the foam flooding in the absence of oil.The foam model implementedis based on a local equilibrium and describes dependency of foam mobility reduction factor using severalindependent functions,such as liquid saturation,foam velocity,oil saturation and capillary number.Tothis end,the dry-out and gas velocity functions in the foam model were determined from the experimentaldata obtained at low and high-quality regimes of foam flow at a constant injection velocity.Next,pressuredrop profiles of foam flooding at two different surfactant concentrations were modelled to determinethe parameters of the surfactant-dependent function in the foam model.The simulation results fit theexperimental data of pressure drops very well.