Nanoparticle plugging prediction of shale pores: A numerical and experimental study

Xianyu Yang, Jihua Cai, Guosheng Jiang, Jingyu Xie, Yanping Shi, Shuya Chen, Ye Yue, Lang Yu, Yichao He and Kunzhi Xie

Energy, 2020, vol. 208, issue C

Abstract: The combination of energy modeling and nanotechnology has been receiving increasing attention. Researchers have discovered that nanoparticles can plug shale pores. However, currently, information about the blocking effect of nanoparticles on shale pores is largely limited to physical experimental data. The migration, dynamic accumulation, and blocking mechanism of nanoparticles in a drilling fluid after intrusion into shale pores remain unclear. In this study, a CFD-DEM model was used to dynamically predict the quantitative relationship between nanoparticle parameters, fluid properties, and the shale pore plugging efficiency. To ensure rationality, UDF codes were written to correlate the standard drag curve. The results indicate that increasing the viscosity to 5 mPa·s is a highly effective method for improving the plugging efficiency at 1 wt% particle concentration. In addition, the effects of particle size, concentration, and fluid viscosity on the plugging effect are observed to be positively correlated. The plugging efficiency of a solution with 5 mPa·s viscosity was improved by 8.6%, 18.81%, and 18.77% compared with that of a solution with 1 mPa·s viscosity at particle sizes of 1/5, 1/3, and 1/2, respectively. Moreover, a pore roughness of 3% and a fluid viscosity of 5 mPa·s were determined to be the thresholds for improving the particle plugging efficiency. In addition, the simulation results were validated based on the results of a pressure transfer experiment. The findings of this study can serve as a reference for future research on nanoscale pore plugging with viscous flow.

Keywords: CFD simulation; Shale; Nanoparticle; Viscosity; Plugging model; Prediction and verification (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220314444
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:208:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220314444

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.118337

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().