Pore-Scale Evaluation of Polymers
Displacing Viscous OilComputational-
Fluid-Dynamics Simulation of Micromodel
Experiments
Torsten Clemens, SPE, OMV; Kostas Tsikouris, Icon; and Markus Buchgraber, Louis Castanier, and
Anthony Kovscek, SPE, Stanford University
Summary
The recovery of viscous oil can be significantly improved by
injecting polymer solutions. The processes leading to increased
oil production occur on a large scaleimproving vertical and ar-
eal sweep efficiencybut they begin on a microscale.
Micromodels with realistic pore geometries have been created.
These micromodels were saturated with viscous oil, and the dis-
placement of the oil by water and polymer solutions was investigated
experimentally. Polymer injection reduced fingering compared with
water injection and increased sweep efficiency accordingly.
The micromodel pore-network geometry was digitized with
scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The digitized model was
used to perform computational-fluid-dynamics (CFD) simulation
of the displacement processes.
The displacement efficiencies and displacement patterns of the
CFD simulations with water, polymer solutions, and polymer sol-
utions after water breakthrough at the outlet end to displace oil
were very similar to the results of the micromodel experiments.
Then, the CFD simulations were used to investigate the dis-
placement at the pore scale. Water injection leads to the creation
of fingers along slightly more-permeable flow paths. The number
and length of the fingers decrease if polymer solution is injected.
Even for polymer injection after water breakthrough, the fingering
is reduced, polymer solutions are diverted into less-favorable flow
paths, and sweep efficiency is increased.
CFD simulations can also be used to look into non-Newtonian
fluid behavior at the pore scale. The polymers injected in the
micromodel experiments exhibited shear-thinning behavior. On a
pore scale, CFD simulations showed that the shear stress and vis-
cosity of the polymer solutions accordingly are significantly lower
in the pore throats than in the pores. Thus, the displacement effi-
ciency of the polymer solutions is affected by the shear-thinning
behavior.
The CFD simulations are in remarkable agreement with the
micromodel experiments and can be used to quantify the displace-
ment processes at pore scale.
Introduction
Hydrocarbon fields containing viscous oil can be produced by
injecting water. Because of the poor mobility ratio of injected
water to oil, however, recovery factors are low (Craig 1971; Dake
1978). To improve recovery factors, the viscosity of the water can
be increased with water-soluble polymers. The injection of poly-
mer solutions leads to a better sweep efficiency on a macroscopic
scale (Cheng et al. 2010) and also on a core or microscopic scale
(Chun and Pope 2008; Wassmuth et al. 2009; Buchgraber et al.
2011). Overall incremental oil recoveries of more than 10% have
been reported in polymer-injection pilot tests and commercial
Copyright V
C 2013 Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper (SPE 154169) was accepted for presentation at the SPE Improved Oil Recovery
Symposium, Tulsa, 1418 April 2012, and revised for publication. Original manuscript
received for review 18 January 2012. Revised manuscript received for review 21 February
2013. Paper peer approved 25 February 2013.
144
field applications (Needham and Doe 1987; Littman 1988; Putz
et al. 1994; Dong et al. 2008).
To investigate displacement mechanisms on a small scale,
micromodels are useful (Hornbrook et al. 1991; Dong et al. 2005;
Buchgraber et al. 2011). The interpretation of the results is often
performed by visual inspection (van Meurs and van der Poel
1957; Benham and Olson 1963). Other approaches for the inter-
pretation include image analysis to obtain fractal dimensions of
the displacement (Sharma et al. 2011) and flow simulations with
diffusion-limited aggregation models (Doorwar and Mohanty
2011).
To elucidate the displacement processes at a microscale, net-
work modeling has been used extensively. In these models, com-
plex pore geometries are represented by simpler shapes that are
amenable to analytical expressions of fluid displacement (Fatt
1956; Bakke and Oren 1997; Nordhaug et al. 2003; Bekri et al.
2005). These types of models have been improved by developing
geologically more-realistic networks from microstructure images
(Oren et al. 1998; Blunt 2001; Jia et al. 2007).
In addition to improvements in the representation of the porous
media in network models, network models have been used to sim-
ulate various displacement processes such as in-situ combustion
(Akkutlu et al. 2005), relative permeability during chemical flood-
ing (Bo et al. 2003), solution-gas drive in heavy-oil reservoirs
(Javadpour and Jeje 2003), capillary trapping (Pentland et al.
2010), and water-alternating-gas floods (Sohrabi et al. 2004; van
Dijke et al. 2010).
Although network modeling has been very successful and was
applied to many different conditions, some limitations exist. Most
network models neglect the effects of viscous forces on the mobi-
lization of discontinuous phases. The determination of geometri-
cal equivalent pore networks from images is challenging and
involves simplifications.
One way of overcoming a number of these limitations is the
use of CFD. This technique presumes that equations that govern
the physical behavior of a flow system are known (Navier-Stokes,
thermal energy, and species equations). The equations are solved
by approximate methods such as the finite-difference or finite-
element method. CFD has been extensively applied in the auto-
motive (Dhaubhadel 1996; Muyl et al. 2004) and aerospace indus-
tries (Rumsey and Ying 2002). Within the petroleum industry,
CFD has been used, for instance, to tackle various challenges
such as separators (Erdal et al. 1997), erosion (Peri and Rogers
2007), blowout simulation (Borello et al. 2007), cuttings transport
in wells (Bilgesu et al. 2002), and steam-assisted gravity drainage
(Shako and Rudenko 2007).
The lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) has been used as a CFD
method to describe fluid flow in porous media. Within LBM, the
fluid particles are modeled by a time-dependent distribution, mov-
ing on a regular lattice. LBM enables the reproduction of viscous
flow in a realistic pore space without the idealization of the pore-
space geometry. This method was applied to determine the perme-
ability and the relative permeability of rocks with high-resolution
imaging of cores, plugs, or cuttings (Jin et al. 2004; Nur 2009;
Ramstad et al. 2010). Other applications of LBM were the
May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

5 cm
Fig. 1Micromodel with distribution channels and ports
(circled) (Buchgraber et al. 2011).
relationships between porosity, irreducible water saturation, and
permeability (Torskaya et al. 2007) and gravity drainage (Maeda
and Okatsu 2008).
In this study, CFD simulations were conducted with the fluid
properties and pore geometry of the micromodel experiments per-
formed by Buchgraber et al. (2011). In the experiments, water and
polymer solutions of various concentrations displaced viscous oil.
The aims of the study reported here were to investigate quantita-
tively the effects occurring during the water and polymer flooding
of viscous oil at a pore level with CFD simulations and to com-
pare the results with those of the micromodel experiments.
The manuscript is organized as follows: First, the micromodel
experimental investigations and results are briefly summarized;
then, the CFD simulation approach is described, followed by the
results of the CFD simulation of Newtonian and non-Newtonian
fluids and discussion.
Micromodel Results
Micromodels contain an etched-pore pattern that allows the direct
observation of pore-scale events with a microscope. The micro-
models used in the experiments represent a 1:1 realization of pore
8 minutes 17 minutes
50 minutes 71 minutes
Fig. 2Micromodel experimental results of brine: l 5 1 cp displacing oil (l 5 450 cp). Brine is lightly shaded. The inlet channel is
at the bottom of the diagrams; the outlet channel is at the top (Buchgraber et al. 2011).
May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
sizes and pore shapes from a Berea-sandstone thin section. The
pore-network pattern is etched into silicon with standard photoli-
thography techniques. The total area of the structure is 25 cm2
(Fig. 1). The average permeability is 950 md, and porosity is
0.47.
The micromodel is mounted in an aluminum holder that pro-
vides fluid delivery to and production from the micromodel. The
micromodel has inlet and outlet ports at the corner points that are
connected by a fracture or channel along the entry and exit
faces. When filled with injection fluid, the channel provides an
approximately linear boundary condition.
The 25.8 API crude oil used in the study had a viscosity of
450 cp at 22.1 C. FP3630 produced by SNF Floerger was used as
the polymer. The results of water displacing the oil are shown in
Fig. 2.
As expected for this mobility ratio, the brine displaced only a
small fraction of the oil. Fingers of brine grew until they
reached the outlet and caused an early breakthrough of the brine.
Injecting a polymer (FP3630) solution at a viscosity of 16 cp
(at a shear rate of 10 sec1) to displace the oil substantially
improved the sweep efficiency. More, but shorter, fingers were
observed that resulted in a better sweep efficiency (Fig. 3).
Another experiment was performed in which first brine dis-
placed oil, and after the breakthrough of the brine at the outlet
end, the polymer-solution injection started. The brine fingered
through the oil as expected. The polymer injection led to an
enlargement of the fingers that is normal to the displacement
direction.
More details of the experiments and results described previ-
ously are given in Buchgraber et al. (2011).
To improve the understanding of the micromodel experiments
and to provide a basis for the extrapolation of results to different
scales, CFD simulations were performed. In the following para-
graphs, the CFD model is described, and then the simulation
results for Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids are presented.
CFD Simulation
To simulate fluid displacement in mircomodels, idealized pore-
network models have been created. A more direct approach is to
simulate flow directly on a pore-space image that removes the
33 minutes
22 hours
145
 1 minutes 9 minutes
24 minutes 28 minutes
Fig. 3Micromodel experimental results of polymer solution: l 5 16 cp (at a shear rate of 10 sec21) displacing oil (l 5 450 cp).
Brine is lightly shaded. Compared with brine displacing oil, more but shorter fingers are formed (Buchgraber et al. 2011).
need to extract an equivalent network with its inherent approxi-
mations (Coelho et al. 1997; Mostaghimi et al. 2010).
Here, CFD was applied to calculate the movement of the fluids
through the porous medium that was imaged with an SEM. The
following steps were followed:
 Creation of a grid
 Setting of boundary conditions and model initialization
 Simulations with a transient two-phase or three-phase solver
 Post-processing of the results
These steps are described in more detail later.
CFD Grid
The geometry of the micromodel is two dimensional. This enables
easier visualization of the displacement effects. To compare the
displacement in the micromodel with CFD simulations, a 2D grid
has been generated.
On the basis of a real probe of the micromodel (size: 5  5 cm)
as shown in Fig. 1, a digitized model that is useful for CFD simu-
lations was created. The following workflow was implemented
(Fig. 4):
 SEM scan of a 600  500-lm unit block
 Black-and-white digitization of the unit block
 Extraction of the solid parts with a computer-aided design
program
 Duplication of the solid parts of the unit block to extract a
block for fluid simulation
 Import of the generated unit block in a grid that can be used
in the CFD simulations
The digitized model with the dimensions of approximately
600  500 lm was used as the basic unit to produce a 3  3 mod-
ule block with a size of approximately 1800  1500 lm (Fig. 5).
The procedure described previously ensured that the unit block
can be duplicated without creating unrealistic flow boundaries.
The number of gridblocks in the 3  3 module gridblock was
approximately 180,000 cells. The aim of the study was to study
the effects at a small scale (lm scale). The 3  3 module grid-
block contains a full unit block and covers enough detail of the
porous media to investigate the displacement behavior. The accu-
rate determination of the pore geometry with SEM allows precise
calculation of the fluid flow. The grid resolution is shown in
Fig. 6.
146
16 minutes
22 hours
The porosity of the CFD model was 45%, which is close to the
micromodel porosity of 47%. The permeability of the CFD model
was determined with the pressure drop as 590 md. The permeabil-
ity of the micromodel was 950 md; the discrepancy between the
CFD model and micromodel can be attributed to the chosen mod-
ule block of the CFD model that has slightly different pore neck
sizes and pore distribution than the physical micromodel, and dif-
ferent permeability accordingly.
Initial and Boundary Conditions
The model is assumed to be initially filled with oil with a density
of 900 kg/m3 and a dynamic viscosity of 450 cp. The dynamic vis-
cosity of the water was 1 cp. This differs slightly from the experi-
ment in which the initial oil saturation was 92 to 96%. The surface
tension with polymer was measured as 0.012 N/m and with water
(brine) as 0.0574 N/m. Thus, the capillary pressure effects occur-
ring in the micromodel are taken into account. The viscosity of the
polymer solution varied as described later. These properties are
similar to the conditions at which the laboratory experiments with
the micromodel have been performed (Buchgraber et al. 2011).
The boundary conditions of the simulation are shown in Fig. 7.
For the walls, no-slip boundaries were used. For the sides of the
model, no-flow boundaries were introduced. Polymer injection has
been shown to change the wettability of the rock surfaces to more-
water-wet conditions (Broseta et al. 1995; Zaitoun et al. 1998). In
the laboratory experiments of Buchgraber et al. (2011), however,
the surfaces are already initially water-wet, and no wettability
effects could be observed. The boundary conditions in the CFD
simulations represent these observations.
In all simulations, the outlet pressure was kept constant at 0
Pa, and the mass flow at the inlet liquid rate was set to 1.5 cm3/
min, which is similar to the conditions encountered in the micro-
model experiments.
Flow Simulation
In the simulations, the Navier-Stokes equation was solved:
@qU
r  qUU  r  lrU rp Strjn@x  x0 dS
@t
                   1
May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering
 1. SEM scan of a 600 m 500 m unit block
2. Black and white digitisation of the unit block
3. Extraction of the solid parts using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program
4. Duplication of the solid parts of the unit block to be able to extract a block for fluid simulation
5. Import of the genertaed unit block in a grid which can be used in the CFD simulations

CT scan of complete sample

Resolution = m
Failed due to little difference in density between glass and silicon

SEM scan of 11 block B/W digitalisation Extraction of solid

Original probe 55 cm
Resolution = nm CorelDRAW X5
Build up of 600500 m blocks CATIA V5

1. 2. 3.
Creation of 22 block of solids
Cut out 11 fluid block
Copy and mesh 11 fluid block ParaView
ANSA 13.0.1

4.
5. Export 11 fluid as STL

Fig. 4Workflow of extracting a unit block from original micromodel.

The heat transfer between fluids and solids was ignored and
assumed to be negligible at the laboratory conditions.
The simulation of the flow requires a multiphase modeling
approach. The CFD code FOAMpro (ICON FOAMpro 2011) was
used. Two different approaches for the tracking of interfaces are
availablethe Euler Lagrange (or Lagrangian) and the Euler-
Euler methods.
The Lagrangian methodology is often used when dispersed-
flow problems are considered. In this approach, the fluid phase is
considered a continuum and simulated solving the Navier-Stokes
equation, whereas the dispersed phase is examined by tracking a
large number of bubbles or droplets through the flow field.
In the Euler-Euler approach, both continuous and dispersed
phases are described with Eulerian conservation equations written
in fixed coordinates. The phases are treated as continuous media,
interpenetrating each other. The volume fraction describes the
fraction of each phase within a computational cell, and the sum of
all volume fractions equals unity; each phase can take only the
value of zero or unity. Corresponding conservation equations are
solved for each phase. In the study reported here, the Eulerian
approach was seen as the most suitable.
The solver InterFoam of FOAMpro is designed for two or
more incompressible, isothermal immiscible fluids. A-volume-of-
fluids (VoF) phase-fraction-based interface-capturing method is
implemented. In the present approach, the two-phase flow field is

Fig. 5The 333 module block measuring approximately

1800 3 1500 lm. Fig. 6Grid resolution.

May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 147

 Outlet = 0 Pa uses the volume fraction c of one of the phases (here chosen to
be the polymer or water solution) as an indicator function, defined
as
8
<1 for a point inside the polymer or water solution
c 0 < c < 1 for a point in the transitional region
:
0 for a point completely in the oil

The transitional region, in which the interface S resides, is an

artifact of the numerical-solution procedure used here that cannot
fully resolve a sharp discontinuity. The indicator function, a
Wall

Wall
Lagrangian invariant, obeys a transport equation of the form
@c
r  cU 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
@t
From the definitions of c (as previously noted), the local den-
sity and viscosity of the fluid are given by

q cq1 1  cq2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Empty (2D BC) Intel = 1.5 mL/min
Fig. 7Boundary conditions used in the CFD simulations.
treated as a single incompressible continuum with variable density
q and viscosity l. The viscosity can be discontinuous across the
phase interfaces, and the interface can be subject to surface-ten-
sion forces as determined by the surface-tension coefficient r.
The governing mass- and momentum-conservation equations,
respectively, have the basic forms
r  U 0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
@qU
r  qUU rpr  lrU Strjn@x  x0 dS
@t
                   3
Here U is the velocity (vector), p is the pressure, t stands for
time, and l is the dynamic viscosity. Fluids are assumed to be
incompressible (Eq. 2). The last term on the right side of Eq. 3 is
the force caused by surface tension, in which n represents a unit
vector normal to the phase interface S, in which local curvature is
j. This force acts only on S, as ensured by the Dirac function d
().
The location of the time-varying phase interface S(t) is deter-
mined indirectly with a VoF surface-capturing methodology that
l cl1 1  cl2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
where the subscripts 1 and 2 denote the two phases, respectively.
CFD-Simulation ResultsNewtonian Conditions
From the CFD simulations, the velocity magnitude U, the pressure
p, and the phase-fraction alpha are visualized. For the first set of
simulations, the viscosity of the polymer solution was assumed to
behave in a Newtonian fashion; thus, it does not depend on the
shear rate. Afterward, the non-Newtonian behavior of the polymer
solution displacing oil was simulated.
Three cases were investigated:
 Water displacing oil
 Polymer solution displacing oil
 Water displacing oil, with polymer injection after water
breakthrough at outlet end
Water Displacing Oil. The results of simulations for water dis-
placing oil are shown in Fig. 8.
As in the micromodel experiments, severe fingering is
observed in the CFD simulations. The greatest flow velocities (red
color in Fig. 8) correspond with the fingers. The displacement effi-
ciency is poor. Oil in flow paths of slightly larger permeability is
preferentially displaced. Thus, low-viscosity fluid (water) enters
the flow paths, leading to further growth of the fingers.
The inlet pressure (outlet pressure was 0 Pa) and oil and water
production at the outlet end vs. time are shown in Fig. 9.

Oil-water Time: 300

alpha 1 U Magnitude p_rgh

0.2 0.5 0.8 2e06 5e06 7e06 25 50 75
0 1 0 1e05 0 100

Alpha (Saturation) Velocity Magnitude (m/s) Pressure (Pa)

Fig. 8CFD-simulation results after 300 sec for water displacing oil. Alpha refers to the water saturation. The left diagram shows
the severe fingering of the polymer solution (red) entering the numerical micromodel. The middle diagram shows the velocity in
the numerical micromodel; the right diagram the pressure distribution.

148 May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

 4.50E06 4.00E05

4.00E06 3.50E05

Volumetric flow (mL/min)

3.50E06
3.00E05
Pressure (Pa) 3.00E06
2.50E05
2.50E06
2.00E05
2.00E06
1.50E05
1.50E06
1.00E05
1.00E06
Water
5.00E07 5.00E06
Oil
0.00E+00 0.00E+00
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 0 100 200 300 400 500 600
Time (s) Time (s)

Fig. 9Inlet pressure (left) and outlet oil (red) and water (blue) production for CFD simulations of water displacing oil.

The inlet pressure declined steadily until water breakthrough
occurred at the outlet end. The reason is the lower viscosity of the
water compared with the oil. After breakthrough, the inlet pres-
sure only slightly declined.
Polymer-Solution Displacing Oil. The results for the simulation
of the injection of 200-cp constant-viscosity polymer solution into
oil in comparison with the water injection into oil are given in
Fig. 10.
For both simulations, fingering is observed. In the case of
water injection (lower pictures in Fig. 10), however, early water
breakthrough occurs, and the recovery of additional oil after water
breakthrough is slow. Polymer injection (upper pictures in Fig.
10) results in fingers of smaller magnitude (more branching) and
greater oil recovery accordingly.
The comparison of the inlet pressure, oil and water production,
and oil recovery vs. time is given in Fig. 11.
For polymer-solution injection, the inlet pressure decreases
less in comparison with the water case. The breakthrough of poly-
mer solution at the outlet end is later than the water breakthrough.
The oil recovery of 22% for water injection is similar to the recov-
ery factor for the micromodel experiments at water breakthrough
(17%). Polymer-solution injection increases the recovery factor by
more than 10% in the simulations, which fits the observations for a
high polymer concentration in the micromodel experiments.
Water Displacing Oil Followed by Polymer-Solution Injection.
This simulation investigates the displacement-efficiency increase
of polymer injection after a water-injection project. First, water
is injected to displace oil. After water breakthrough, a polymer
solution of constant viscosity (35 cp) is used to increase sweep
efficiency. Fig. 12 shows the comparison of the water-injection
case with the water injection followed by the polymer-injection
case.
The pressure at the inlet and the oil production at the outlet are
depicted in Fig. 13.
When the injection of the polymer solution is started after
water breakthrough, the injection pressure increases. After some

Oil-polymer 200cp Time: 450

alpha () U (m/s) Magnitude p (pa)

0.25 0.5 0.75 2.5e06 5e06 7.5e06 25 50 75

0 1 0 1e5 0 100
Oil-water Time: 450

alpha () U (m/s) Magnitude p (pa)

0.25 0.5 0.75 2.5e06 5e06 7.5e06 25 50 75

0 1 0 1e05 0 100

Alpha (Saturation) Velocity Magnitude (m/s) Pressure (Pa)

Fig. 10CFD-simulation results (after 450 seconds) for water and polymer solutions displacing oil. Water injection results in poor
sweep efficiency and severe fingering.

May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 149

 4.50E06 4.00E05
Oil-Polymer 200CP 60%
4.00E06 3.50E05

3.50E06 50% Oil-Polymer 200CP

Volumetric flow (mL/min)

3.00E05

Recovery Factor (%)

3.00E06
Pressure (Pa)

Oil-Polymer 200CP 2.50E05 40%

2.50E06 Oil-Water
Oil-Water
2.00E05 30%
2.00E06
1.50E05
1.50E06 20%
Oil-Water
1.00E06 1.00E05
10%
0.50E-07 5.00E06

5.00E+00 0.00E+00 0%
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
Time (s) Time (s) Time (s)

Inlet Pressure (oil-Water) Inlet Pressure (oil-Polymer 200cp) Oil displaced by Water Oil displaced by Polymer 200cp Recovery Factor with Water Recovery Factor with Polymer 200cp

Pressure at Inlet Vs Time Oil Recovery at Outlet Vs Time Oil Recovery Factor

Fig. 11CFD-simulation results of the inlet pressure, oil and water production, and recovery factor of water and polymer solutions
displacing oil.

delay, the oil production stabilizes and slightly increases com-

pared with the oil production for the continuous water injection.
Polymer Polymer-solution injection after water breakthrough results in
decreasing the fingering and formation of smaller-scale fingers
Water
relative to water injection. After polymer injection, the water cut
Oil reduces by approximately 20%.

CFD-Simulation ResultsNon-Newtonian
Conditions
Time: 530 Polymer solutions exhibit non-Newtonian behavior. Most poly-
mers show shear-thinning characteristics when measured with a
rheometer (Smith 1970; Burnett 1975). These types of measure-
ments are used to derive the viscosity of the polymer solution vs.
shear rate for a given concentration.
For polymer flooding, it is important to know the in-situ vis-
Polymer
cosity of a polymer solution. Thus, the shear rate in the porous
Water medium is approximated to determine the in-situ polymer-solu-
Oil tion viscosity. A large number of models has been introduced to
calculate the in-situ viscosity from rheometer measurements.
These models are derived from the flow through a bundle of capil-
laries as described by the Hagen-Poiseuille relationship (Denn
1980). The radius of the capillaries is calculated by applying an
effective-medium approach. To include the shear-thinning behav-
Time: 530 ior of polymers, the capillary-bundle model has been expanded by
introducing the power-law relationship of the viscosity with shear
rate (Gogarty et al. 1972; Hirasaki and Pope 1974; Cannella et al.
1988; Hejri et al. 1991).
Fig. 12CFD-simulation results (after 530 seconds) for water For polymers with low elasticity showing shear-thinning
displacing oil (lower picture) compared with water displacing behavior, the power-law relationship between apparent viscos-
oil until breakthrough of the water, followed by polymer-solu-
ity as inferred from the pressure drop and flow velocity in the core
tion injection (upper picture).
is similar to the power-law relationship measured in the

4.50E06 4.00E05

4.00E06 3.50E05
Volumetric flow (mL/min)

3.50E06 3.00E05

3.00E06
Pressure (Pa)

2.50E05
2.50E06
2.00E05
2.00E06
1.50E05
1.50E06
1.00E05
1.00E06
5.00E06
5.00E07

0.00E+00 0.00E+00
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Time (s) Time (s)
Inlet Pressure (Water-oil-Polymer) Inlet Pressure (Water) Oil displaced by water-oil-Polymer Oil displaced by Water

Fig. 13CFD-simulation results of the inlet pressure and oil production of water (blue) displacing oil (red) and water displacing oil
followed by polymer injection after water breakthrough.

150 May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering

 nul (m2/s) alpha () Shear Rate
Viscosity 0.0004 0.0006 Alpha 0.25 0.5 0.75 Shear Rate 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.16
0.0002 0.0008 (Polymer Conc.) 0 1 0 0.2

p (Pa) U (m/s) Magnitude U (m/s) Magnitude

Pressure 25 50 75 Velocity 4e6 8e6 1e5 Velocity 4e6 8e6 1e5

0 100 Magnitude 0 1.6e5 Vectors 0 1.6e5

Fig. 14CFD-simulation results of non-Newtonian polymer behavior at pore scale.

rheometer. However, determining the apparent viscosity in the
core for a certain flow rate with a capillary-bundle-based model is
difficult, and measurements or empirical factors are used to match
the pressure drop (Gogarty et al. 1972; Teeuw and Hesselink
1980; Duda et al. 1983; Seright et al. 2010).
With measurements of polymer viscosity vs. shear rate, a
power law for the calculation of the viscosity l was applied in the
CFD simulations to investigate the effects of shear thinning at
pore scale,
l ken1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
where n 0.4 and k 431; e is the shear rate.
The simulation results of the viscous behavior on the pore
level are shown in Fig. 14.
Fig. 14 illustrates that, within the porous medium, the shear
rates are much greater in the pore throats than within the pores.
The polymer-solution distribution is not uniform but larger in the
center of the pores. These effects might be the reason for the inac-
curacy with a simplified capillary-tube model to determine the in-
situ viscosity of polymers.
The polymer viscosity for non-Newtonian simulation at a time
of 520 seconds is shown in Fig. 15. The figure depicts the polymer-
solution viscosity for different viscosity thresholds. The large var-
iance in flow velocities caused by the different pore sizes results in
a large variance in polymer viscosity. The larger the chosen thresh-
old for showing polymer viscosity, the greater the number of pores
included and the greater the volume-averaged viscosity.
The non-Newtonian shear-thinning behavior of the polymer
solutions has implications for the microscopic displacement effi-
ciency. Fig. 16 shows the breakthrough time as a function of the
inlet pressure at the breakthrough of polymer solution at the outlet
end. The breakthrough time is equivalent to the recovery of oil at
polymer-solution breakthrough at the outlet end. The inlet pres-
sure is related to the viscosity of the polymer solution (Newtonian
or non-Newtonian) and the oil.
For the same inlet pressure (effective viscosity), the dis-
placement efficiency of the non-Newtonian shear-thinning

Time: 520

nul (m2/s) nul (m2/s) nul (m2/s)

0.003 0.005 0.007 0.003 0.005 0.007 0.003 0.005 0.007

0 0.01 0 0.01 0 0.01

Threshold 00.001 m2/s Threshold 00.002 m2/s Threshold 00.005 m2/s

Fig. 15CFD-simulation results of non-Newtonian polymer viscosity for 520 seconds of injection. The pictures show the viscosity
in the model for different thresholds.

May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering 151


700
Non Newtonian
Newtonian
Breakthrough time in s
600
500
400
300
200
1E06 2E06 3E06 4E06 5E06 6E06 7E06 8E06
Pressure at breakthrough at the Inlet in Pa
Fig. 16Breakthrough time as function of the pressure at the
inlet at the breakthrough. The breakthrough time is related to
the oil recovery at breakthrough. The pressure at the inlet is
related to the polymer and oil viscosity.
polymer is slightly better (approximately 5%) than that of the
Newtonian polymer at the same inlet pressure. The reason might
be that (because of shear thinning in the non-Newtonian case) the
viscosity in the pores is larger than for the Newtonian simulations.
Therefore, more oil from the larger pores is displaced in the non-
Newtonian than in the Newtonian simulations.
Conclusions
Micromodel experiments are useful to investigate the displace-
ment efficiency of water and polymer solutions injected into oil.
Severe viscous fingering is observed for the injection of fluids
with a significantly smaller viscosity than the oil (unfavorable
mobility ratio). The injection of polymer solutions that lead to an
improvement in the mobility ratio increases the number of fingers.
However, the size of the fingers is reduced, and thus the displace-
ment efficiency improved. The injection of polymer solutions af-
ter water breakthrough enlarges the fingers (normal to flow
direction) and improves the displacement efficiency as well.
CFD simulations were performed with an SEM image of the
micromodel. By use of this methodology on a section of the
micromodel network, the displacement processes were simulated
at a microscopic scale, honoring the governing fluid-flow equa-
tions and including a detailed description of the porous medium.
The results of the simulations are similar to the micromodel ex-
perimental results. Severe fingering for water injection into oil
occurs; smaller, but more, fingers for polymer-solution injection
were simulated. Also, the improved displacement for polymer-so-
lution injection after water breakthrough was simulated.
CFD simulations of non-Newtonian-polymer-solution injec-
tion showed that the variance in polymer-solution viscosity in the
porous medium is large. Shear rates are much greater in the pore
throats than in the pores. Thus, it is very difficult to define an
equivalent medium with a capillary-tube model for non-Newto-
nian fluids. This has been observed for core tests described in the
literature.
The displacement efficiency for non-Newtonian shear-thinning
fluids is slightly better (approximately 5% for this case) than for
Newtonian fluids for the same pressure drop over the model.
Nomenclature
n unit vector normal to interface
P pressure, kgf=m2
S phase interface, m2
t time, seconds
U velocity magnitude, kg=m3
j interface curvature
c phase volume fraction
152
r liquid surface tension, N/m
q density, kg=m3
l dynamic viscosity, kgf  s=m2
Acknowledgments
Thanks to OMV E&P for permission to publish the paper and to
Jacques Papper and Lucy Gagliardi of Icon for the support and
discussions.
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Torsten Clemens worked for Shell on various reservoir-engineer-
ing topics such as recovery of heavy oil, fractured reservoirs,
and enhanced oil recovery (EOR). In 2005, he joined OMV E&P
as Senior Reservoir Engineering Adviser. Clemens has authored
more than 35 technical papers. In 2010, he received the SPE
Regional Award for Reservoir Description and Dynamics.
Clemens is the Chairperson of the International Energy
Agency EOR Initiative.
Kostas Tsikouris is a consulting CFD engineer at Icon. In addi-
tion to oil recovery, he has worked on various CFD applications
including Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning; mixing
processes; external aerodynamics; adjoint shape optimization;
and built environment. Tsikouris earned a DipArch degree from
National Technical University of Athens and an MSc degree in
154
environmental design and engineering from University College
London.
Markus Buchgraber is a PhD candidate in energy-resources
engineering at Stanford University. He holds BS and MS
degrees in petroleum engineering from the University of Leo-
ben, Austria.
Louis Castanier is a lecturer and senior research associate in
the Energy-Resources Engineering Department at Stanford
University. His research interests are heavy-oil recovery, under-
ground fluid flow, and thermal EOR. Castanier earned PhD,
ME, and BS degrees from Toulouse University, France.
Anthony Kovscek is a professor and Chairman of the Energy-
Resources Engineering Department at Stanford University. He
earned BS and PhD degrees from the University of Washington
and University of California at Berkeley, respectively. In 2006,
Kovscek was awarded the SPE Distinguished Achievement
Award for University Faculty and in 2005 the SPE Western North
America Region Technical Achievement Award.
May 2013 SPE Reservoir Evaluation & Engineering