Computational study on the three phase displacement characteristics of foam fluids in porous media

Foam technology has shown great potentials not only on enhancing oil recovery (EOR) but also on the Carbon Capture Storage Utilization (CCUS) applications. In this paper, the foam three phase displacement characteristics in the porous media is investigated based on the mechanistic Stochastic Bubble Population Balance (SBPB) model. With taking the foam generation rate K-g and maximum bubble density n(max )as the key influential parameters, the dynamic distributions of the water, oil and gas phase saturations as well as the bubble densities along the foam flow direction are successfully obtained. Firstly, the overall computation frame is validated based on good agreements between the numerical and the reported experimental results on the foam displacement efficiency on water and oil phases. Then, the parameter studies are thoroughly performed concerning the two key factors of Kg and n(max )in the SBPB model. Numerical results show the parameter of K(g )dominates the foam flow behavoir in the inlet region of the porous media therefore doesn't show significant effect on the final oil and gas phase recovery rates. On the other hand, it is found larger n(max) could lead to higher oil and water recovery ratio, which indicates to increase the n(max) values of the foam fluid could act as the favorable means in oil recovery enhancement practices.