Geological sequestration of CO2 in the pore space of subsurface rock formations offers a safe and permanent carbon storage solution. In this work, we present the application of a pore-scale flow simulator to the study of CO2 storage in geological formations. We model the rock pore space geometry, extracted from high-resolution X-ray microtomography images of suitable rocks as a network of connected capillaries. Assuming piston-like flow within each capillary and conservation of mass at each network node, a large system of equations can be solved to compute properties like pressure distribution or flow rate at each point in the network. Multi-phase flow simulations track the displacement in time of the fluid interface within each capillary. These dynamic simulations on the high-resolution capillary network representation of the rock are very computationally costly. Alternatively, analysis is carried out on the aggregate results of multiple two-phase flow simulations on several statistically equivalent capillary network models of the rock sample, which retain topological properties of the original at a significantly lower computational cost. We performed a sensitivity analysis with respect to multiple fluid parameters, such as viscosity, interfacial tension, contact angle, pressure, and temperature, and quantify their influence on the infiltration and retention of CO2 inside a capillary network that is representative of an actual rock.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.