Stable and unstable miscible displacements in layered porous media

Abstract

The effect of permeability heterogeneities and viscosity variations on miscible displacement processes in porous media is examined using high-resolution numerical simulations and reduced theoretical modelling. The planar injection of one fluid into a fluid-saturated, two-dimensional porous medium with a permeability that varies perpendicular to the flow direction is studied. Three cases are considered, in which the injected fluid is equally viscous, more viscous or less viscous than the ambient fluid. In general it is found that the flow in each case evolves through three regimes. At early times, the flow exhibits the concentration evolves diffusively, independent of both the permeability structure and the viscosity ratio. At intermediate times, the flow exhibits different dynamics including channelling and fingering, depending on whether the injected fluid is more or less viscous than the ambient fluid, and depending on the relative magnitude of the viscosity and permeability variations. Finally, at late times, the flow becomes independent of the viscosity ratio and dominated by shear-enhanced (Taylor) dispersion. For each of the regimes identified above, we develop reduced-order models for the evolution of the transversely averaged concentration and compare them to the full numerical simulations.