VISUALIZATION BY LIGHT TRANSMISSION OF OIL AND WATER CONTENTS IN TRANSIENT 2-PHASE FLOW-FIELDS

The difficulty of determining transient fluid contents in a soil-oil-w ater system is hampering an understanding of the system's flow charact eristics. In this paper, we describe a light transmission method (LTM) which can rapidly obtain oil and water contents throughout a large tw o-dimensional flow field of silica sand. By appropriately coloring the water with 0.005% FD&C blue #1, the hue of the transmitted light is f ound to be directly related to the water content within the porous med ia. The hue provides a high resolution measurement of the water and oi l contents in transient flow fields (such as unstable flow). Evaluatio n of the reliability of LTM was assessed by checking the mass balance for a known water injection and its utility in visualizing a whole flo w field was exemplified for unstable fingered flow by comparing fluid contents to those obtained with synchrotron X-ray radiation. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.