Applications of Additive Manufacturing to Rock Analogue Fabrication

Abstract

Abstract Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is an effective method of petroleum recovery, having been shown to extract up to 70% of original oil in place compared to the roughly 50% for conventional oils and less than 50% for unconventional resources such as heavy oil and shale oil obtainable through primary and waterflood recovery methods. Research problems in EOR are often ill-posed due to the large range of relevant spatial and time scales and strong nonlinearities in the physical systems. Consequently, EOR experiments suffer from a lack of repeatability: slight variations in the experimental parameters or environment, including porous medium heterogeneity, may lead to dramatically different outcomes, making it difficult to determine which results are spurious and which are meaningful. Additive manufacturing (3D printing) technology has enabled the unprecedented ability to create repeatable experimental samples. Using 3D printing technologies such as stereolithography, selective laser sintering, and fused deposition modeling, it has become possible to create porous media samples from a wide range of materials with a reliable level of accuracy and repeatability. In this study, we present several applications of additive manufacturing to creating repeatable rock analogues for EOR experiments. Specifically, we outline potential applications of 3D printing to in-situ combustion and microfluidic flow experiments. For in-situ combustion, we demonstrate the efficacy of powder bed printing for creating repeatable sandstone analogues with consistent porosity and permeability. For microfluidics, we show the potential of using 3D printing for producing repeatable rock replicas at-scale in three dimensions. We also present flow visualizations using scaled-up printed rock models of silicates and carbonates. Overall, 3D printing is a very promising technology for applications in EOR experiments. Based on the results of this study, we believe that with further research 3D printing will soon offer an unprecedented degree of experimental repeatability and ability to create representative solid surfaces for EOR research.