Experimental and numerical study of foam flow through porous media

This paper reports an experimental and numerical study of foam flow through porous media for various surfactant types, concentrations, gas/liquid flow rates, oil saturation, permeability and temperature. The experiments consisted of nitrogen alternated with water and nitrogen/water co-injection. Although it was possible to generate a low mobility foam by pre-injection of a surfactant slug prior to nitrogen displacement, co-injection resulted in a high mobility foam. The nature of foam generated and mobility reduction was found to be functions of absolute permeability, surfactant concentration, temperature and pressure. Also, residual oil or gas saturation had profound effect of foam mobility. In all cases, a high temperature led to improved mobility reduction. This finding is significantly different from that observed before. A mathematical formulation was used to predict and test experimental results. Good agreement between experimental and numerical results was only found for limited cases for which strong foam was generated.