Linear Stability Analysis and CFD Simulation of Thermal Viscous Fingering Instability in Anisotropic Porous Media
Publication: Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 147, Issue 4
Abstract
Water or steam injection in oil fields is a common method for enhanced oil recovery in petroleum engineering. The thermoviscous fingering instability is one of the main problems of a complex nature that decreases the efficiency of oil extraction. Actually, oil wells are a porous medium with a level of anisotropy for permeability and diffusion. In this paper, the thermal viscous fingering instability in anisotropic media is investigated using both linear stability analysis and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. For stability analysis, the growth rate of disturbances is determined by solving quasi-steady-state equations via a shooting method. The CFD simulation is performed by solving the governing equations of heat and mass transfer using a spectral method. It is shown that the longitudinal direction permeability and the transverse direction dispersion have important effects on the instability. The values of the thermal-lag coefficient and the Lewis number have opposite effects on the different types of displacements considered. When porous media are swept using cold fluid, increasing the Lewis number intensifies the level of flow instability.
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Published In
Journal of Engineering Mechanics
Volume 147 • Issue 4 • April 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 8, 2020
Accepted: Nov 19, 2020
Published online: Jan 18, 2021
Published in print: Apr 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jun 18, 2021
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