Numerical Simulation of the Propagation of Viscous Fingering and Aspect Ratio on Surfactant Flooding

Summary We have carried out numerical tests to generate insights into the infleunce of numerical effect, gravity cross flow and viscous fingering as a function of viscosity ratio g 1. Results show that the vertical dispersion contributes to the magnitude of the fingers in the surfactant flood solution. which can lead to errors in the computed values of the mobility at the shock fronts. This was demonstrated in the combined effect of short aspect ratio below 5 and Gpe not more than 40, which helps to determine the improvement necessary in the prediction and precision of the solution. Computation of flow in the late time for viscosity ratio gg 10 suggest two main finger patterns, one the finger rapidly grows linearly, and the second that develops in a “side-to-side” diversion with marginal mobility at the fronts. The interplay between the numerical and physical diffusion provided a better optimization of the nonlinearity of the flow behaviour and degree of mobility control at the fronts. In this paper, we report the effects of gridding in comparison to the physical instability for the numerical study of surfactant displacement across a range of scale-up to the well scale.