Analysis of Dynamic Fluid Displacements for Rapid Characterization of Flow in Unsaturated Aquifers

by
David Warren Boucher, M.S.E.

University of Texas at Austin, 1995
Supervisor: Kenneth E. Gray

Application of increasingly sophisticated mathematical techniques to the analysis of field scale flow and transport processes points to the need for accurate yet expedient methods for quantifying hydraulic properties of the medium to be simulated. Less time consuming methods for estimating relative permeability and capillary pressure are important, in part because of the time and labor involved in field measurement and the cost to obtain the data. Determination of parameters that affect fluid flow in unsaturated aquifers is time and labor intensive. This research has applied a method for rapidly determining multiphase flow characteristics through petroleum industry-developed technology involving measuring transient pressure variations, water production, and pore fluid saturation. A new one-dimensional flow model was developed and error minimization routine adapted for this flow model. These routines were validated by comparison to a proven chemical flood simulator. The parameters describing relative permeability and capillary pressure are then systematically varied in the one-dimensional two-phase fluid flow model until convergence with the measured laboratory data is obtained. The parameter estimation algorithm was used to take saturation profiles from both synthetic and real data sets and develop a set of parameters that described the relative permeability and capillary pressure functions. In the case of synthetic saturation data where the relative permeability and capillary pressure parameters were known the algorithm was able to regenerate those parameters accurately. For the laboratory measured experimental data the algorithm generated a set of saturation profiles from estimated parameters that nearly identically overlaid the original measured data set.

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