Liquid–Liquid Flow in Irregular Triangular Capillaries Under Different Wettabilities and Various Viscosity Ratios

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Long Long ; Yajun Li ; Mingzhe Dong
• 关键词：Two ; phase flow ; Triangular capillary ; Shape factor ; Relative permeability ; Lubricating effect
• 刊名：Transport in Porous Media
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：October 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：115
• 期：1
• 页码：79-100
• 全文大小：1,320 KB
• 刊物类别：Earth and Environmental Science
• 刊物主题：Earth sciences
  Geotechnical Engineering
  Industrial Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
  Civil Engineering
  Hydrogeology
  Mechanics, Fluids and Thermodynamics
  
• 出版者：Springer Netherlands
• ISSN：1573-1634
• 卷排序：115

文摘

An attempt is made to model liquid–liquid two-phase flow inside irregular triangular cross-sectional capillaries. In a triangular capillary, the distribution of two immiscible liquids is determined by a particular threshold pressure, and the interface curvature and profile of the meniscus of the two fluids are derived and analyzed. Three hundred and sixty cases of steady-state two-phase flow were calculated using six triangular shapes, 12 contact angles ranging from 5\(^{\circ }\) to \(60^{\circ }\), five oil-to-water viscosity ratios from 1.0 to 500, and three different tube sizes. The relative permeability curves of oil and water flow in different triangular capillaries, with different contact angles and oil-to-water viscosity ratio, can be integrated into a pair of curves. Moreover, each of these curves reveals an approximately linear relative permeability law. The results illustrate that relative permeability is independent not only of the size of the capillary, but also of its shape, meaning that relative permeability is independent of the geometry of the capillary. The results of this study reveal, for the first time, that two-phase flow behavior in the triangular cross-sectional capillaries is generally independent of the geometric property of the capillary. The detailed velocity field of flow, with different viscosities, is shown to illustrate the effect of viscosity on the velocity distribution. Modeling of the case of thin water films residing between the non-wetting phase and the inner wall indicates the presence of a lubricating effect of a low-viscosity fluid on a high-viscosity fluid at very low water saturation conditions.