School of Mechanical Engineering Prof. Pavel Bedrikovetsky
School of Mechanical Engineering Seminar
Monday, January 8, 2018 at 14:00
Wolfson Building of Mechanical Engineering, Room 206
Suspension-Colloidal Transport in Porous Media: Petroleum and Environmental Applications
Prof. Pavel Bedrikovetsky
Australian School of Petroleum
University of Adelaide
Flow of suspensions and colloids in porous media with particle capture, detachment and consequent permeability alteration occurs in aquifers and subterranean basins during exploitation of artesian wells, disposal of industrial wastes in aquifers and consequent contamination, fresh and hot water storage in aquifers and geothermal reservoirs, ocean water invasion into aquifers, industrial filtering, as well as exploitation of oil and gas production and injection wells.
We discuss the particulate transport in rocks with fines attachment and detachment accounting for particle- and pore size distributions. The basic equations form a stochastic population-balance system. The system can be upscaled in the cases of mono-sized particles and of small-concentrations. 1D linear and axi-symmetric problems for suspension injection or detachment of natural reservoir fines allow for exact solutions. The solutions allow analysing the propagation of concentration waves of injected colloids or lifted suspensions, its effects on well injectivity and productivity. The exact solutions allow also for downscaling, i.e. restauration of the micro-scale behaviour. Another application of the exact solutions is regularisation of inverse problems, allowing interpreting laboratory experiments and tuning the model parameters. We show simple lab and field devices for complete characterisation of suspension-colloidal system and lab-based reservoir-scale predictions.
The talk is completed by exploration of random-walk and Boltzmann’s models, and of two-phase suspension-colloidal transport.
Bio: Pavel is a Professor of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Adelaide. His research covers suspension and multiphase transport in porous media, including exact integration, upscaling, inverse problems, and technologies of enhanced gas and oil recovery. He authors a seminal book on reservoir engineering and 230 papers in academic journals and Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). He is 2008-2009 and 2016-2017 SPE Distinguished Lecturer.
