Experimental and numerical modeling of viscous fingering in liquid-liquid miscible displacements

Viscous fingering is a phenomenon caused by the momentum difference between the displacing fluid of high viscosity and the displaced fluid of low viscosity. This phenomenon plays a vital role not only in numerous applications of enhanced oil recovery but also in ground water modeling and several chemical engineering applications. The selection of the displacing fluid with particular characteristics becomes extremely significant in avoiding the growth and the propagation of its finger-patterned flow, which leads to extremely poor displacement efficiency in both miscible and immiscible displacement schemes for enhanced oil recovery. Currently the petroleum industry is faced with great discrepancy between prediction and field performance of these displacement schemes because of the presence of the phenomenon of viscous fingering, which ultimately renders the flow schemes instable. This research is aimed at developing a comprehensive mathematical model validated with a series of experimental observations to minimize the gap between the predicted and real field performances of miscible displacement schemes. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...