A pore-scale investigation of viscous coupling effect on immiscible two-phase flow in porous media

Abstract

Viscous coupling effect plays a significant role in immiscible two-phase flow within porous media, while its influence on relative permeability remains uncertain. In this paper, an improved MRT-based viscosity-modified multicomponent multiphase (MCMP) pseudopotential lattice Boltzmann model, capable of handling high viscosity ratio, is employed to simulate two-phase flow with different viscosities in a cross-array circular structure and a real rock structure, respectively. The applicability of this model for two-phase flow with various viscosity ratios has been verified by some typical tests. Systematically, the effects of viscosity ratio, structural configuration, and wetting condition on the relative permeability curves are investigated in conjunction with their component distributions and velocity fields at different two-phase saturations. These results indicate that due to the two-phase flow competition under different structural conditions, the viscous coupling effect has varying degrees of impacts on the mobility of thin phase and viscous phase. Further, the mechanism of two-phase lubricating effect is also discussed under different wetting conditions at Darcy flow regime.