Linking continuum-scale state of wetting to pore-scale contact angles in porous media

JOURNAL OF COLLOID AND INTERFACE SCIENCE

卷:561

Article

Sun, Chenhao¹  McClure, James E.²  Mostaghimi, Peyman¹  Herring, Anna L.³  Shabaninejad, Mehdi³  Berg, Steffen^4,5,6  Armstrong, Ryan T.¹ 

[1] Univ New South Wales, Sch Minerals & Energy Resources Engn, Kensington, NSW 2052, Australia

[2] Virginia Polytech Inst & State Univ, Adv Res Comp, Blacksburg, VA 24061 USA

[3] Australian Natl Univ, Dept Appl Math, Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia

[4] Shell Global Solut Int BV, Rock & Fluid Phys, Grasweg 31, NL-1031 HW Amsterdam, Netherlands

[5] Imperial Coll London, Dept Earth Sci & Engn, London SW7 2AZ, England

[6] Imperial Coll London, Dept Chem Engn, London SW7 2AZ, England

关键词: Wettability;    Porous media;    Contact angle;    Multiphase flow;    Gauss-Bonnet theorem;    Interfacial curvature;    Geometric state of fluids;   

DOI  :  10.1016/j.jcis.2019.11.105

来源: Elsevier

【 摘 要 】

Hypothesis: Wetting phenomena play a key role in flows through porous media. Relative permeability and capillary pressure-saturation functions show a high sensitivity to wettability, which has different definitions at the continuum- and pore-scale. We hypothesize that the wetting state of a porous medium can be described in terms of topological arguments that constrain the morphological state of immiscible fluids, which provides a direct link between the continuum-scale metrics of wettability and pore-scale contact angles. Experiments: We perform primary drainage and imbibition experiments on Bentheimer sandstone using air and brine. Topological properties, such as Euler characteristic and interfacial curvature are measured utilizing X-ray micro-computed tomography at irreducible air saturation. We also present measurements for the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) index, capillary pressure and pore-scale contact angles. Additional studies are performed using two-phase Lattice Boltzmann simulations to test a wider range of wetting conditions. Findings: We demonstrate that contact angle distributions for a porous multiphase system can be predicted within a few percent difference of directly measured pore-scale contact angles using the presented method. This provides a general framework on how continuum-scale data can be used to describe the geometrical state of fluids within porous media. (C) 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

【 授权许可】

Free