Abstract
The saturation-dependency behaviour of three-phase relative permeabilities is of central importance for modelling three-phase displacement processes in porous media. In this paper, and in related work, a method has been developed to determine the saturation-dependencies of three-phase relative permeabilities. This is Method is suitable for all types of mixed-wet and fractionally wet porous systems that contain clusters of oil-wet and water-wet pores with constant but different oil-water contact angles, reflecting weakly wetted conditions. Based on the classification of all allowed pore occupancies in a completely accessible porous medium, saturation-dependencies of the corresponding relative permeabilities are derived. Furthermore, three-phase relative permeabilities that appear to depend only on their own saturations are either linked to the corresponding two-phase relative permeabilities or it is shown that such a link cannot be established. A comparison has been made with existing relative permeability models with respect to their saturation-dependencies. © 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 365-384 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | Advances in Water Resources |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 3-4 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2001 |
Keywords
- Contact angles
- Fractionally wet
- Interfacial tensions
- Mixed-wet
- Relative permeability
- Saturation-dependency
- Three-phase flow
- Weakly wetted pores