Computation of the relationship between interfacial area, capillary pressure and saturation in porous media based on the level set method

Abstract

To gain a better understanding of the relationship between capillary pressure, water saturation and interfacial area in two phase flow, we have studied the drainage and imbibition process for an oil-water system. A level set model that was developed at IRIS was used to simulate the results, which where plotted in Excel and Matlab. Furthermore Paraview was used to visualize the oil migration for the imbibition and drainage process. The capillary pressure curves showed to differ when the invasion of the fluid occurred from different sides in the heterogeneous rock. Furthermore the result obtained showed that inclusion of the interfacial area in the capillary pressure and water saturation relationship did not eliminate hysteresis.