Spatial fractional Darcy’s law to quantify fluid flow in natural reservoirs

Ailian Chang, HongGuang Sun, Yong Zhang, Chunmiao Zheng and Fanlu Min

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2019, vol. 519, issue C, 119-126

Abstract: Various formulas describing non-Darcy flow have been applied to quantify fluid flow in natural geological media, while there is no universal law or formula that can reliably describe the complex relationship between the flow rate and the pressure gradient for single-phase fluid flow in natural oil/gas reservoirs. This study aims at proposing and evaluating a spatial fractional Darcy’s law model for the calculation of the flow rate of fluids in natural heterogeneous oil/gas reservoirs at any scale. Experiments documented in literature are revisited to identify the transport characteristics of fluid flow in natural media with complex heterogeneity and structures, including for example discontinuous and/or interconnected pores. The fitting exercises show that the spatial fractional Darcy’s law can felicitously depict the flow properties and match well the experimental data shown in seepage curves. The model parameters can also be reasonably simplified, given the possible physical interpretation closely related to the medium structure.

Keywords: Fluid flow; Spatial fractional Darcy’s law; Pressure gradient; Velocity distribution; Experiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:519:y:2019:i:c:p:119-126

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2018.11.040

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