2-PHASE FLOW-THROUGH ORTHOGONAL COMPOSITE CORES WITH WETTABILITY HETEROGENEITY

The objective of this study is to perform and interpret oil-brine disp lacements in composite cores made up of sandstone blocks of the same p ermeability but opposite wettability. The experimental procedure consi sts of cutting cubic segments from a homogeneous water-wet sandstone c ore, one block out of two being silanated to become oil-wet. The compo site cores were constructed by rearranging the blocks together. The wa terflooding experiments are interpreted using the large-scale averagin g method (Quintard and Whitaker, 1988). Large-scale petrophysical prop erties (relative permeabilities and capillary pressure) were computed from the local-scale properties measured on isolated samples. A 1D num erical simulation is then performed, using the large-scale properties, and results are compared to the experimental data. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.