Size Exclusion Mechanism, Suspension Flow through Porous Medium

Hooman Fallah, Afrouz Fallah, Abazar Rahmani, Mohammad Afkhami, Ali Ahmadi

Department of Petroleum Engineering, Firoozabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Firoozabad, Iran.

DOI: 10.4236/ijmnta.2012.14017                

Abstract

A lot of investigations have been done in order to understand the mechanisms of the transport of particulate suspension flow through porous medium. In general, Deep Bed Filtration studies have been conducted to analyse the mechanism involved in the processes of capturing and retaining particles occurs throughout the entire depth of the filter and not just on the filter surface. In this study, the deep bed filtration mechanism and the several mechanisms for the capture of suspended particles are explained then the size exclusion mechanism has been focused (particle capture from the suspension by the rock by the size exclusion). The effects of particle flux reduction and pore space inaccessibility due to selective flow of different size particles will be included in the model for deep bed filtration. The equations for particle and pore size distributions have been derived. The model proposed is a generalization of stochastic Sharma-Yortsos equations. Analytical solution for low concentration is obtained for any particle and pore size distributions. As we will see, the averaged macro scale solutions significantly differ from the classical deep bed filtration model.

Keywords

Transport; Porous Medium; Particulate Suspension Flow; Size Exclusion

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	R. Dawson and R. B. Lantz, “Inaccessible Pore Volume in Polymer Flooding,” SPE Journal, Vol. 12, No. 5, 1972, pp. 448- 452.
[2]	E. V. Oort, J. F. G. van Velzen and K. Leerlooijer, “Impairment by Suspended Solids Invasion: Testing and Pre- diction, SPE Production & Facilities, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1993, pp. 178-184.
[3]	M. M. Sharma and Y. C. Yortsos, “Transport of Particulate Suspensions in Porous Media: Model Formulation,” AIChE Journal, Vol. 33, No. 10, 1987, pp. 1636-1643. doi:10.1002/aic.690331007
[4]	J. P. Herzig, D. M. Leclerc, P. Le Goff, “Flow of Suspension through Porous Media—Application to Deep Filtration,” urnal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, Vol. 62, No. 5, 1970, pp. 8-35.
[5]	T. Iwasaki, “Some Notes on Sand Filtration,” American Water Works Association, Vol. 29, No. 10, 1937, pp. 1591-1602.
[6]	R. Edgar, “Particle Transport in Flow through Porous Media: Advection, Longitudinal Dispersion and Filtration,” Ph.D. Thesis, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 1992.
[7]	V. I. Seljakov and V. V. Kadet, “Percolation Models in Porous Media,” Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1996.
[8]	S. Pang and M. M Sharma, “A Model for Predicting Injectivity Decline in Water-Injection Wells,” SPE Formation Evaluation, Vol. 12, No. 3, 1997, pp. 194-201.
[9]	N. Massei, M. Lacroix and H. Q. Wang, “Transport of Particulate Material and Dissolved Tracer in a Highly Permeable Porous Medium,” Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 57, No. 1-2, 2002, pp. 21-39.