SCALING MISCIBLE FLUID DISPLACEMENTS IN POROUS-MEDIA

The importance of miscible displacements in the petroleum industry mak es their understanding and quantitative prediction critical in decisio ns on the applicability of certain recovery techniques. In this study, scaling miscible displacements in porous media was investigated using a general procedure of inspectional analyis. The procedure was used t o derive the minimum number of dimensionless scaling groups which gove rn miscible displacements. It was found that scaling miscible displace ments in a two-dimensional, homogeneous, anisotropic vertical cross-se ction requires the matching of nine dimensionless scaling groups. A nu merical sensitivity study of the equations was performed to investigat e the effects of some of the scaling groups on the performance of misc ible displacements. Through this sensitivity study, it was found that one of the groups is insensitive to the results over all practical val ues. Hence, the problem can be scaled by only eight dimensionless scal ing groups. The prediction of the recovery efficiency for miscible EOR processes can be achieved solely by analyzing these scaling groups. P reliminary results indicate that when the groups are used as inputs to an artificial neural network, the efficiency of the displacement can be accurately predicted.