Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Journals
DOI 10.1029/2019WR026826
Licence creative commons licence
Title (Primary) The impact of wettability and surface roughness on fluid displacement and capillary trapping in 2D- and 3D-porous media. Part 1: Wettability-controlled phase transition of trapping efficiency in glass beads packs
Author Geistlinger, H.; Zulfiqar, B.
Source Titel Water Resources Research
Year 2020
Department BOSYS
Volume 56
Issue 10
Page From e2019WR026826
Language englisch
Supplements https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/downloadSupplement?doi=10.1029%2F2019WR026826&file=wrcr24634-sup-0001-2019WR026826-SI.docx
Keywords Percolation transition; sharp transition (crossover) at a critical contact angle θc; below θc the displacement front was flat and compact; above θc the displacement front was fractal and ramified trapping efficiency changes from no‐trapping to maximal trapping; trapped gas clusters show universal scaling law
Abstract

Fluid invasion, displacement of one fluid by another in porous media, is important in a large number of industrial and natural processes. Of special interest is the trapping of gas and oil clusters. We study the impact of wettability on fluid pattern formation and capillary trapping in three‐dimensional glass beads packs (dmean = 1 mm) during fluid invasion at capillary numbers of 10‐7 using micro‐CT. The invading fluid was water and the defending fluid air. The contact angle of the glass beads were altered between 5° and 115° using Piranha cleaning and silanization. We analyzed the front morphology of the invading fluid, the residual gas saturation, the fluid occupation frequency of pores, and the morphology and statistics of the trapped gas clusters. We found a sharp transition (crossover) at a critical contact angle θc = 96°. Below θc the morphology of the displacement front was flat and compact caused by the strong smoothing effect of cooperative filling. Above θc the morphology of the displacement front was fractal and ramified caused by single bursts (Haines jumps). Across this dynamical phase transition the trapping efficiency changes from no‐trapping to maximal trapping. For θ > θc the experimental results show that invasion percolation governs the fluid displacement. Strong indicators are the universal scaling behavior of the size distribution of large clusters (relative data error εdata < 1%) and their linear surface‐volume relationship (R2 = 0.99).

Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=23072
Geistlinger, H., Zulfiqar, B. (2020):
The impact of wettability and surface roughness on fluid displacement and capillary trapping in 2D- and 3D-porous media. Part 1: Wettability-controlled phase transition of trapping efficiency in glass beads packs
Water Resour. Res. 56 (10), e2019WR026826 10.1029/2019WR026826