X-ray microcomputed imaging of wettability characterization for multiphase flow in porous media: A review
Abstract view|610|times PDF download|268|times
Abstract
With the advent of X-ray micro-computed tomography which is now routinely used, pore- scale fluid transport and processes can be observed in three-dimensional (3D) at the micro-scale. Multiphase flow experiments that are conducted under in situ imaging scanning conditions can be utilized to study the pore-scale physics relevant to subsurface techno- logical applications. X-ray micro-tomographic imaging is a non-destructive technique for quantifying these processes in 3D within confined pores. This paper presents a review for the usage of X-ray micro-computed tomography experiments to investigate wettability effect on multiphase flow. The fundamental workflow of combining experiments with pore-scale in situ imaging scanning such as equipment requirements, apparatus design and fluid systems are firstly described. Then imaging analysis toolkit is presented for how to quantify interfacial areas, curvatures, contact angles, and fluid properties through these images. Furthermore, we show typical examples, illustrating recent studies for the wettability characterization by using X-ray micro-computed imaging.
Cited as: Zou, S., Sun, C. X-ray microcomputed imaging of wettability characterization for multiphase flow in porous media: A review. Capillarity, 2020, 3(3): 36-44, doi: 10.46690/capi.2020.03.01
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Akai, T., Lin, Q., Bijeljic, B., et al. Using energy balance to determine pore-scale wettability. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2020, 576: 486-495.
AlRatrout, A., Raeini, A.Q., Bijeljic, B., et al. Automatic measurement of contact angle in pore-space images. Adv. Water Resour. 2017, 109: 158-169.
Anderson, W.G. Wettability literature survey part 5: The effects of wettability on relative permeability. J. Pet. Technol. 1987, 39(11): 1453-1468.
Andrew, M., Bijeljic, B., Blunt, M.J. Pore-scale contact angle measurements at reservoir conditions using X-ray microtomography. Adv. Water Resour. 2014, 68: 24-31.
Armstrong, R.T., McClure, J.E., Berrill, M.A., et al. Beyond Darcy’s law: The role of phase topology and ganglion dynamics for two-fluid flow. Phys. Rev. E 2016, 94(4): 043113.
Armstrong, R.T., Porter, M.L., Wildenschild, D. Linking pore-scale interfacial curvature to column-scale capillary pressure. Adv. Water Resour. 2012, 46: 55-62.
Berg, S., Ott, H., Klapp, S.A., et al. Real-time 3D imaging of Haines jumps in porous media flow. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2013, 110(10): 3755-3759.
Blunt, M.J. Multiphase Flow in Permeable Media: A Pore-Scale Perspective. Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2017.
Blunt, M.J., Bijeljic, B., Dong, H., et al. Pore-scale imaging and modelling. Adv. Water Resour. 2013, 51: 197-216.
Blunt, M.J., Lin, Q., Akai, T., et al. A thermodynamically consistent characterization of wettability in porous media using high-resolution imaging. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2019, 552: 59-65.
Celauro, J.G., Torrealba, V., Karpyn, Z., et al. Porescale multiphase flow experiments in bead packs of variable wettability. Geofluids 2014, 14(1): 95-105.
Coles, M., Hazlett, R., Spanne, P., et al. Pore level imaging of fluid transport using synchrotron X-ray microtomography. J. Pet. Sci. Eng. 1998, 19(1-2): 55-63.
Feali, M., Pinczewski, V., Cinar, Y., et al. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the three-phase distribution of oil, water, and gas in bentheimer sandstone by use of micro-CT imaging. SPE Reserv. Eval. Eng. 2012, 15: 706-711.
Gao, Y., Lin, Q., Bijeljic, B., et al. X-ray microtomography of intermittency in multiphase flow at steady state using a differential imaging method. Water Resour. Res. 2017, 53(12): 10274-10292.
Georgiadis, A., Berg, S., Makurat, A., et al. Pore-scale micro-computed-tomography imaging: Nonwetting-phase cluster-size distribution during drainage and imbibition. Phys. Rev. E 2013, 88(3): 033002.
Hassanizadeh, S.M., Gray, W.G. Thermodynamic basis of capillary pressure in porous media. Water Resour. Res. 1993, 29(10): 3389-3405.
Heindel, T.J. A review of X-ray flow visualization with applications to multiphase flows. J. Fluids Eng. 2011, 133(7): 074001.
Herring, A.L., Middleton, J., Walsh, R., et al. Flow rate impacts on capillary pressure and interface curvature of connected and disconnected fluid phases during multiphase flow in sandstone. Adv. Water Resour. 2017, 107: 460-469.
Hussain, F., Pinczewski, W.V., Cinar, Y., et al. Computation of relative permeability from imaged fluid distributions at the pore scale. Transp. Porous Media 2014, 104(1): 91-107.
Iglauer, S., Fernø, M., Shearing, P., et al. Comparison of residual oil cluster size distribution, morphology and saturation in oil-wet and water-wet sandstone. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2012, 375(1): 187-192.
Karpyn, Z.T., Piri, M., Singh, G. Experimental investigation of trapped oil clusters in a water-wet bead pack using X-ray microtomography. Water Resour. Res. 2010, 46(4): W04150.
Kovscek, A.R., Wong, H., Radke, C.J. A pore-level scenario for the development of mixed wettability in oil reservoirs. AIChE J. 1993, 39(6): 1072-1085.
Kumar, M., Fogden, A., Senden, T., et al. Investigation of pore-scale mixed wettability. SPE J. 2012, 17(1): 20-30.
Landry, C.J., Karpyn, Z.T., Piri, M. Pore-scale analysis of trapped immiscible fluid structures and fluid interfacial areas in oil-wet and water-wet bead packs. Geofluids 2011, 11(2): 209-227.
Li, J., Jiang, H., Wang, C., et al. Pore-scale investigation of microscopic remaining oil variation characteristics in water-wet sandstone using CT scanning. J. Nat. Gas Sci. Eng. 2017, 48: 36-45.
Li, S., Hou, S. A brief review of the correlation between electrical properties and wetting behaviour in porous media. Capillarity 2019, 2(3): 53-56.
Li, T., Schl ¨uter, S., Dragila, M.I., et al. An improved method for estimating capillary pressure from 3D microtomography images and its application to the study of disconnected nonwetting phase. Adv. Water Resour. 2018, 114: 249-260.
Lin, Q., Bijeljic, B., Berg, S., et al. Minimal surfaces in porous media: Pore-scale imaging of multiphase flow in an altered-wettability Bentheimer sandstone. Phy. Rev. E 2019, 99(6): 063105.
Mascini, A., Cnudde, V., Bultreys, T. Event-based contact angle measurements inside porous media using time-resolved micro-computed tomography. J. Colloid Inter-face Sci. 2020, 572: 354-363.
Morrow, N.R. Physics and thermodynamics of capillary action in porous media. Ind. Eng. Chem. 1970, 62(6): 32-56.
Mostaghimi, P., Blunt, M.J., Bijeljic, B. Computations of absolute permeability on micro-CT images. Math. Geosci. 2013, 45(1): 103-125.
Murison, J., Semin, B., Baret, J.C., et al. Wetting hetero-geneities in porous media control flow dissipation. Phys. Rev. Appl. 2014, 2(3): 034002.
Nishiki, M., Shiraishi, K., Sakaguchi, T., et al. Method for reducing noise in X-ray images by averaging pixels based on the normalized difference with the relevant pixel. Radiol. Phys. Technol. 2008, 1(2): 188-195.
Pratt, W.K. Digital Image Processing. New York, USA, John Wiley & Sons, 1991.
Reynolds, C., Krevor, S. Characterizing flow behavior for gas injection: Relative permeability of CO2 -brine and N2 -water in heterogeneous rocks. Water Resour. Res. 2015, 51(12): 9464-9489.
Reynolds, C.A., Menke, H., Andrew, M., et al. Dynamic fluid connectivity during steady-state multiphase flow in a sandstone. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2017, 114(31): 8187-8192.
R ¨ucker, M., Bartels, W.B., Singh, K., et al. The Effect of mixed wettability on pore-scale flow regimes based on a flooding experiment in Ketton Limestone. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2019, 46(6): 3225-3234.
Sakellariou, A., Sawkins, T., Senden, T., et al. X-ray tomography for mesoscale physics applications. Phys. A 2015. 339(1-2): 152-158.
Salathiel, R.A. Oil recovery by surface film drainage in mixed-wettability rocks. J. Pet. Eng. Technol. 1973, 25(10): 1216-1224.
Scanziani, A., Lin, Q., Alhosani, A., et al. Dynamics of displacement in mixed-wet porous media. Proc. R. Soc. A 2020, 476: 20200040.
Scanziani, A., Singh, K., Blunt, M.J., et al. Automatic method for estimation of in situ effective contact angle from X-ray micro tomography images of two-phase flow in porous media. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2017, 496: 51-59.
Schl ¨uter, S., Berg, S., R ¨ucker, M., et al. Pore-scale displace-ment mechanisms as a source of hysteresis for two-phase flow in porous media. Water Resour. Res. 2016, 52(3): 2194-2205.
Seth, S., Morrow, N.R. Efficiency of conversion of work of drainage to surface energy for sandstone and carbonate. Paper SPE 102490 Presented at the SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, San Antonio, Texas, USA, 24-27 September, 2006.
Setiawan, A., Suekane, T., Deguchi, Y., et al. Three-dimensional imaging of pore-scale water flooding phenomena in water-wet and oil-wet porous media. J. Flow Control, Meas. Visualization 2014, 2(2): 25-31.
Sheppard, A., Latham, S., Middleton, J., et al. Techniques in helical scanning, dynamic imaging and image segmentation for improved quantitative analysis with X-ray micro-CT. Nucl. Instrum. Methods Phys. Res. B 2014, 324: 49-56.
Sheppard, A.P., Sok, R.M., Averdunk, H. Techniques for image enhancement and segmentation of tomographic images of porous materials. Phys. A 2004, 339(1-2): 145-151.
Singh, K., Bijeljic, B., Blunt, M.J. Imaging of oil layers, curvature and contact angle in a mixedwet and a waterwet carbonate rock. Water Resour. Res. 2016, 52(3): 1716-1728.
Sun, C., McClure, J.E., Mostaghimi, P., et al. Probing effective wetting in subsurface systems. Geophys. Res. Lett. 2020a, 47(5): e2019GL086151.
Sun, C., McClure, J.E., Mostaghimi, P., et al. Characterization of wetting using topological principles. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2020b, 578: 106-115.
Sun, C., McClure, J.E., Mostaghimi, P., et al. Linking continuum-scale state of wetting to pore-scale contact angles in porous media. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 2020c, 561: 173-180.
Turner, M., Knuefing, L., Arns, C., et al. Three-dimensional imaging of multiphase flow in porous media. Phys. A 2004, 339(1-2): 166-172.
Varslot, T., Kingston, A., Myers, G., et al. High-resolution helical cone-beam micro-CT with theoretically-exact reconstruction from experimental data. Med. Phys. 2011, 38: 5459.
Wildenschild, D., Armstrong, R.T., Herring, A.L., et al. Exploring capillary trapping efficiency as a function of interfacial tension, viscosity, and flow rate. Energy Procedia. 2011, 4: 4945-4952.
Wildenschild, D., Sheppard, A.P. X-ray imaging and analysis techniques for quantifying pore-scale structure and processes in subsurface porous medium systems. Adv. Water Resour. 2013, 51: 217-246.
Youssef, S., Bauer, D., Bekri, S., et al. 3D In-situ fluid distribution imaging at the pore scale as a new tool for multiphase flow studies. Paper SPE 135194 Presented at SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Florence, Italy, 19-22 September, 2010.
Zou, S., Armstrong, R.T., Arns, J.Y., et al. Experimental and theoretical evidence for increased ganglion dynamics during fractional flow in mixedwet porous media. Water Resour. Res. 2018, 54(5): 3277-3289.
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2020 The Author(s)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.