Co‐Current Fluid Flow Mechanisms Within a Complex Porous Structure at the Pore Level

This study has been addressed the mechanisms of the co‐current fluid flow in a heterogeneous porous media using the lattice Boltzmann method. Since the smallest interaction between viscous and capillary forces at the interface is of great importance, the simulations are performed with the hybrid phase‐field model at the pore level. This is because the main advantage of this model is that due to its connection with the phase‐field theory, it has a solid physical basis to record interface dynamics. Model verification is followed by recording viscous coupling effects. The relative permeability curves and the velocity profiles are compared with the analytical solution, so that the observations confirm the accuracy claim of the model. In the following, the fluid flow through the heterogeneous porous structure is simulated, so that its sweep efficiency and corresponding velocity field at the breakthrough time are discussed. The results show that increasing the injection velocity reduces the displacement efficiency and increases the velocity field fluctuations due to the viscous fingering regime. Changing the wetting conditions to strong imbibition (SI) will increase the efficiency due to the role of capillary pressure and corner flow mechanism. Also, increasing the interfacial tension in the SI and the strong drainage will increase and decrease the sweep efficiency, respectively, so the rate of changes in fully immiscible flow is much higher than the near miscible flow. The velocity fluctuations in the fully immiscible flow are more significant than in the near miscible flow, which is reasonable given the flow properties.