Sharif Digital Repository

Fractured carbonate reservoirs are mostly oil-wet to intermediate-wet. Due to the negative capillary pressure of the matrix poor spontaneous imbibition of reservoir brine occurs in such reservoirs, and water flooding leads into early break through due to the high conductivity of the fracture network. Some surfactants have the ability to change the wettability of rock matrix toward water-wet state by adsorbing onto the rock surface. The phenomenon can result in spontaneous imbibition improvement and thereby increasing water flooding efficiency and recovery from fractured carbonate reservoirs. In this thesis the effect of some surfactants on the wettability of Iranian carbonate reservoir rocks... 

Gas-oil displacement, when stabilized by gravity forces leads to high displacement efficiency, as manifested in high recovery factor associated with gas-cap drive and gravity drainage. The main objective of this research is improved understanding of drainage behavior and changes in flow properties when the importance of viscous, gravity and capillary forces varies. The influence of interplaying between controlling forces on relative permeabilities is also studied. Another objective of this work is to study effect of wettability on recovery under forced gravity drainage. To study drainage behavior under various dominant driving/resistive forces, a number of forced gravity drainage experiments... 

The most fundamental concept in considering electrical properties of reservoir rocks are formation Resistivity factor and Resistivity index which are defined by Archie and are useful in interpretation of well logging, evaluation of porosity and saturation. A theory on the relationship between formation resistivity factor and porosity, also resistivity index and saturation are presented by use of parameters Cementation factor and Saturation exponent. The Archie equation is valid only when the rock is strongly water-wet and clay free, which is not the case in carbonate rocks. Therefore the Archie equation cannot be generalized over the entire carbonate reservoirs. On the other hand influence... 

Using membrane contactors for acid gas removal, combines the advantages of membrane based separation processes and traditional ones. In this project we aim to study the use of a membrane absorption system for sweetening gas streams containing mixed acid gases with composition similar to raw natural gas. H2S and CO2 exist in the gas stream simultaneously which can be removed by mixture of alkanolamine solvents, including MDEA, DEA and MEA, are used for treating. A lab-scale membrane absorption setup with feed capacity of 2 lit/min, was designed, constructed and commissioned. Several hollow fiber modules equipped with PSf and PVDF membranes were fabricated. Our results revealed that reaching... 

The effects of biosurfactants on sandstone rocks are known in the literature. However, there are few examples of experimental works in Iranian carbonate reservoirs dealing with the effects of biosurfactants under reservoir conditions. This thesis discusses the effect of an efficient biosurfactant produced from Pseudomonas aeroginosa MRo1, a bacterial strain isolated from oil excavation areas in southern Iran, on the recovery of residual oil trapped within carbonate rocks was investigated. The MRO1 could reduce surface tension from 72 to 28 dyne/cm. It also could reduce Interfacial tension from 18.382 to 5.646 dyne/cm.
In a core holder set-up bearing four limestone- and... 

After primary and secondary recovery processes more than 50 percent of oil remains in reservoirs. Therefore for more recovery from these reservoirs, methods of enhanced oil recovery should be applied.In this paper the effect of nanoparticles of SiO2 in size of 14 nm, on wettability is investigated. Using this nanoparticle, the wettability of carbonate rock in reservoirs could be changed and alter from oil-wet or mix-wet to water-wet. To assess this, hydrophilic changes of sandstone core and carbonate core are studied using the contact angle test. The same test is done on the carbonate core saturated with brine and oil that had received injection with brine and nanoparticles of SiO2 with two... 

The Fe-Ni-Co alloy to borosilicate glass seals have been used for many years as hermetic and electrically insulating seals. It is not only excellent in thermal expansion matching but also in good wettability and bond strength too. Oxidation of Kovar was performed in Water vapor, Saturated Nitrogen and N2-H2-H2O atmosphere in tube furnace. Oxide layer composition and thickness changed by varying in oxidation temperature and time. XRD analysis showed different Iron oxides in oxide layer, FeO, Fe3O4 and Fe2O3. However in the third atmosphere no Hematite observed. Increasing oxidation temperature and time result in increasing sample weight gains and roughness. Oxide layer microstructure also was... 

In imbibition process, as one of the main mechanisms of recovery from naturally fractured reservoirs, a wetting fluid enters matrix blocks and produces nonwetting phase from blocks as result of interaction between capillary, gravity and viscous forces. Depending on various characteristics of system different types of imbibition like counter-current spontaneous imbibition, cocurrent spontaneous imbibition and dynamic counter-current imbibition could occur. In order to predict recovery from matrix blocks scaling equations can be used. In this thesis suitable scaling equations are presented for different types of imbibition by using analytical solutions. The studies cases are counter-current... 

Imbibition process is known to be an important recovery mechanism in naturally fractured reservoirs with water-wet matrix blocks that are imposed to water influx from an active aquifer or water flooding. Matrix blocks which are subjected to water flooding or water invasion from active aquifers do not become immersed in water at once, but they experience gradual rising of water in fracture. But most of imbibition studies are performed under conditions of totally immersed cores in static aqueous phase. Surfactants are known to reduce residual oil saturation by decreasing interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water. On the other hand, considerable reduction of IFT due to surfactant... 

Capillary Imbibition is an important mechanism in producing oil from matrix blocks in fractured reservoirs. In a water-wet fractured reservoir, if the rise of water level in fracture is in a way that at all the moments the water front in fracture is lower than that in the matrix block we expect co-current imbibition. Iranian reservoirs have large matrix blocks and co-current imbibition can be expectable. Till this time, not many investigations have been done on co-current imbibition in and out of our country, Iran. In this thesis, an experimental investigation on co-current imbibition will be done for different conditions. The main goal of this thesis is the study of co-current imbibition in... 

There is increasing evidence that injecting modified brines has a significant impact on the amount of oil recovered, but the exact mechanism by which this occurs is an unsettled issue, and is supposed to be a cause of the complex interactions occurring between the phases insitu. In this thesis, surface chemistry of smart water has been investigated. Fluid/solid and fluid/fluid interactions for Bangestan crude oil in tfhe presence of designed solutions and a set of dilutions of Persian Gulf seawater have been studied and compared. Fluid/solid interactions were investigated through wettability studies. Impact of salinity and ionic composition on this interaction was measured through contact... 

This study investigates three-dimensional modeling of nanodroplets over chemically patterned surfaces. The pattern can be established by changing the contact angle on the surface. The problem is studied numerically by solving the thin film equations.Both the long-range and short-range inter-molecular interactions are considered. The numerical procedure is validated by using the theoretical studies. The effects of parameters such as the size of the droplets, the gradient of the surface, and the slip coefficient on the dynamics and speed of droplets and the shape of them during the motion are inspected.By examining the dynamics of the system it is revealed that the velocity of the droplets... 

The properties of 3 nm-diameter fluorinated silica nanoparticles with different coverage percent of CF3 groups as water and oil repellents were investigated at the water-rock and decane-rock interface using molecular dynamics simulation. Simulating a pore of rock in presence of water and decane molecules separately, resulted in liquid bridging for both of liquids. The density profiles of liquids in the pore clearly show several highly ordered layers packing of the molecules close to the rock surface. Distribution of liquid molecules around the nanoparticles is much influenced with increasing CF3 groups on the nanoparticle surface. Results show that adsorption of functionalized silica... 

This research was done for feasibility evaluation and understanding correct microbial enhanced oil recovery(MEOR) procedure for carbonate reservoirs. With the aim of cost reduction and possible activation of smart water mechanisms, sea water used as a base for MEOR process. Two biosurfactant producing strains were isolated from oil contaminated water and soil, and one halotolerant strain, from sea water. Optimization of biosurfactant yield was conducted and two new definitions for optimum point, by considering economical and technical facts, were proposed. Partial characterization of produced biosurfactant was carried out through FTIR and NMR analysis and the produced biosurfactant was... 

Recent studies have shown that comprehensive characterization of the behavior of infilled rock fractures under saturated and unsaturated conditions requires knowledge of morphological details of fracture surface, as well as state of stress of infill materials and their initial innate conditions (e.g., void ratio, water content, degree of saturation and dry density). This study presents the details and typical results from a new testing approach to study the hydro-mechanical behavior of the infilled rock fractures under different stress states and saturation conditions. The new testing approach incorporates the axis translation technique for suction control, a flow pump for the measurement of... 

Acidizing is one of the most effective techniques to remove the formation damage and restore (or even increase) the permeability of the near wellbore region. Although this technique is widely used to resolve the skin problem, it could initiate new damages itself that hinder the fluid flow and decrease the well production, consequently. Acid-oil emulsion and sludge formation are known as two major induced formation damage and the main reasons for the oil well acid treatment failures.When the HCl is reacted with asphaltenic crude oil during matrix acidizing, it results in unexpected damage at the near wellbore region and hinder the fluid flow through certain mechanisms include:
1- Pore... 

The aim of this study is to develop an understanding of the role of the magnetic and electric forces on the filtration performance of wet granular beds. At first, the effect of wetting is considered by locating micro water film around the square channel for particles deposition in four different Reynolds Re=1 to Re=10 number, Typically 1000 particles in different sizes (100nm-10μm) were injected to microchannel when air and water formed completely on the surface of the block. The Drag force, Brownian force, Saffman`s lift force and the gravity force are affecting the particles. After that Dielectrophoretic and Magnetophoretic forces were included in the domain for investigating the role of... 

Two-phase fluid flow physics in porous media is applied in various fields. Studies have shown that wettability and surface tension, which represent fluid-rock and fluid-fluid interactions, have a significant effect on the dynamics of the immiscible displacement. Although the effects of wettability and surface tension on the macroscopic behavior of fluid flow are known, there is less understanding of it at the micro scale. Considering the essential role of wettability and surface tension in various fields, this project seeks to investigate the effects of wettability and surface tension on the movement and distribution of fluids and the dominant displacement mechanisms within the porous media... 

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experimental and modeling of the drop formation process on calcite rock and calcite aged in nano fluid surfaces in order to analyze size dependent contact angle and wettability modification. To do this, the calcite surfaces were prepared by cutting to an approximately size of 3*3*0.4 cm and grinded and polished to achieve different roughnesses. The purity and roughness of the samples were determined by X-ray diffraction and atomic force microscopy, respectively. In order to conduct the dynamic and static contact angle measurements on the calcite surface in vapor saturated condition, a small laboratory device was designed. The advanced contact... 

Due to population growth, the demand for water supply has increased. This need has drawn attention to the use of consumed and treatable water resources. Organic pollutants are a key source of water pollution. On the other hand, petrochemical oil pollution and frequent oil accidents during oil production or maritime transport have become one of the environmental problems.There are different methods for water and oil separation and water purification that in the present project, selective separation can be achieved by using hydrophobic materials and surface roughness and creating surfaces with two properties: superhydrophobic and ultra-oil friendly. This method is also very effective, cheap...