CO2 Plume Migration with Gravitational, Viscous, and Capillary Forces in Saline Aquifers

Abstract

When injecting CO2 in saline aquifers, in order to investigate realistic flow, this study proposes a dimensionless group in the form of combination of Capillary number and Bond number to consider three forces of gravitational, viscous and capillary forces, simultaneously. Using of each dimensionless group individually is insufficient to obtain a satisfactory correlation with flow behavior of injected CO2. With the proposed dimensionless group, the universal profile of CO2 saturation was obtained in describing CO2 flow behaviors for CO2 injection rate, CO2-water interfacial tension, and density difference between CO2 and water. Thus, more realistic CO2 flow behavior was analyzed. © Copyright 2016 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)