Journal
JOURNAL OF PETROLEUM SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
Volume 33, Issue 1-3, Pages 39-48Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/S0920-4105(01)00174-7
Keywords
three-phase flow; contact angle; pore occupancy; relative permeability
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In this paper, we consider the relationships between wettability and three-phase pore occupancy in simple systems of arbitrary wettability, defined in terms of the oil-water contact angle, theta(ow), of a pore. When theta(ow) changes, the remaining contact angles theta(gw) and theta(go) also vary, consistent with available limited experimental data and a theoretical constraint equation, This equation was derived originally by Bartell and Osterhof [Ind. Eng. Chem. 19 (11) (1927) 1277] and applied more recently by Zhou and Blunt [J. Contam. Hydrol. 25 (1997)]. The consequences of this theory on several aspects of three-phase flow in mixed-wet and fractionally wet systems are discussed, in particular the issues of fluid-fluid wetting order, capillary displacement invariants, pore occupancy and saturation-dependencies of three-phase relative permeabilities. The model of pore occupancy leads to quite complex saturation-dependencies of the corresponding three-phase relative permeabilities. In case of distributed contact angles in both the water-wet and oil-wet pore clusters, all of the three-phase relative permeabilities depend on two saturations in a complex manner for most saturation combinations. In the general case, where the three-phase relative permeabilities cannot be related simply to the underlying two-phase relative permeabilities, a process-based model based on the pore scale physics is required. Given the great importance of the constraint equation, we recommend further experimental measurements of three-phase interfacial tension-contact angle data to establish the actual relationship between the three contact angles. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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