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    Capillary trapping in a vertically heterogeneous porous layer

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    Author
    Hinton, EM; Woods, AW
    Date
    2021-03-10
    Source Title
    Journal of Fluid Mechanics
    Publisher
    Cambridge University Press (CUP)
    University of Melbourne Author/s
    Hinton, Edward
    Affiliation
    School of Mathematics and Statistics
    Metadata
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    Document Type
    Journal Article
    Citations
    Hinton, E. M. & Woods, A. W. (2021). Capillary trapping in a vertically heterogeneous porous layer. Journal of Fluid Mechanics, 910, https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2020.972.
    Access Status
    Open Access
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11343/258916
    DOI
    10.1017/jfm.2020.972
    Open Access URL
    https://doi.org/10.1017/jfm.2020.972
    Abstract
    The post-injection migration of a plume of CO2 through an inclined, confined porous layer across which the permeability varies is studied theoretically. We derive a sharp-interface lubrication model which accounts for the capillary trapping of CO2 at the receding edge of the plume. Eventually the CO2 becomes entirely trapped in the pore throats, and the final run-out distance is a key quantity for determining storage security and efficiency. We deploy asymptotic approximations to show that when the CO2 plume migrates a long distance relative to its initial length, the run-out distance is approximately proportional to the permeability at the top of the layer. The permeability structure away from the top boundary is important at early and intermediate times. Dissolution of the CO2 and three-dimensional effects are incorporated, which demonstrate that the influence of heterogeneity is quite general. The initial distribution of the CO2 at the end of the injection phase also influences the post-injection spreading and trapping. At low injection rates, the CO2 remains near the top of the layer so that the end-of-injection plume shape has a small aspect ratio leading to a relatively large run-out length. At very high fluxes, the end-of-injection shape and hence the final run-out distance becomes nearly independent of the injection flux because the role of buoyancy becomes negligible during injection. Our results illustrate the strong control of reservoir heterogeneity on the sweep efficiency of a CO2 plume and hence the storage capacity. In many situations, it may be possible to increase the storage volume by injecting at a higher rate.

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