Two-phase flow visualization experiments in variable-aperture fractures: The correlation between flow structure, displacement efficiency and relative permeability

The correlation of flow structure, displacement efficiency and relative permeability for two-phase flow in variable-aperture fractures is critical for many fractured rock applications. A systematic visualization method for two-phase flow experiments was developed and four transparent variable-aperture fracture samples were duplicated by epoxy casting method. A total of 112 times two-phase flow experiments of nitrogen displacing water under various gas flow rates were performed and the corresponding results of images and pressure data during flow process were recorded and analyzed based on optical principles. On the basis of the competition between capillary resistance and inertia force of gas, the flow structure can be generally divided into four states including capillary resistance dominant (CR) state with few flow paths in two lateral sides without fingering flow, competitive (CP) state with the occurrence of clear fingering flow phenomenon, inertia force of gas dominant (IF) state showing more chaotic gas distributions, and steady (SD) state that has few changes in flow paths. The growth of displacement efficiency is greatly affected by the four transition states, in which the increment of displacement efficiency in Frac-1 that has gone through the three states of flow structure approaches 30%, and that of Frac-2 and Frac-3 are about 15%, while Frac-4 with little change of flow structure is less than 10%. As a consequence, the relationship between saturation and relative permeability of gas becomes steeper from Frac-1 to Frac-4 with greater deviation from X, V-C and Corey models due to the smaller variation range of gas saturation, and an improved v-type model is obtained where the exponent n shows a positive correlation to fracture mean aperture.