Study on Flow in Fractured Porous Media Using Pore-Fracture Network Modeling

Haijiao Liu, Xuhui Zhang, Xiaobing Lu and Qingjie Liu
Additional contact information
Haijiao Liu: Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Xuhui Zhang: Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Xiaobing Lu: Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
Qingjie Liu: State Key Laboratory for Enhanced Oil Recovery, Research Institute of Exploration and Development of PetroChina, Beijing100083, China

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-17

Abstract: Microscopic flow in fractured porous media is a typical problem for the exploitation of tight reservoirs. The rapid-flow in the fractured porous-media is of great significance to efficient and continuous oil/gas exploitation. The fractures are expected to enhance flow conductivity and mass transfer between matrix and fractures, and to improve oil displacement during water flooding. However, the fractures may also lead to water channeling under some conditions. The understanding on the mechanism of the microscopic flow in the fractured porous media has been insufficient until now. In this paper, a two-dimensional pore-fracture network model is presented to study the role of fractures in the flow. The effects of two main dimensionless parameters, fracture length to network length l f / l and fracture density N f / N , on the absolute permeability and the oil displacement efficiency are investigated. The results show that the flow in the matrix plays a controlling role at a low fracture density. Once the fracture density exceeds a certain value, the flow is controlled by fractures. With the increase of the fracture density, the oil displacement efficiency develops into three typical stages: when N f / N < 0.1, the oil displacement efficiency increases rapidly; when 0.1 < N f / N < 0.5, the oil displacement efficiency changes slowly; and when N f / N > 0.5, the oil displacement efficiency decreases rapidly. In the case l f / l > 0.8, the water mainly flows through a concentrated path connected by some fractures, resulting in it bypassing most oil regions, and thus the oil displacement efficiency decreases rapidly, similar to the water channeling.

Keywords: dual porous media; pore network model; microscopic flow; fracture length; fracture density (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/1984/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/12/1984/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:12:p:1984-:d:121086

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().