Author(s)

Muhammad Tahir, Rafael E. Hincapie, Michael Be, Leonhard Ganzer

Institute of Petroleum Engineering, Clausthal University of Technology, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Germany.

We present a comprehensive workflow to obtain the best insights into the viscoelastic behavior of polymers. Viscoelasticity is depicted in most cases by the current commercially available polymers used for EOR applications. The phenomenon is debated to be one of the reasons for additional oil recovery during polymer flooding applications. It is somehow accepted that polymer increases volumetric sweep efficiency owing to improved mobility ratio. Recently researches have explained that flooding polymers in porous media with elastic characteristics could recover additional oil, due to the improved microscale oil displacement (pore-scale). This study focuses on the analysis of polymer viscoelasticity based on single-phase core, sand-pack and capillary tube (CT) experiments coupled with their detailed rheological characterization, in order to evaluate polymer behavior in porous media. A combination of hydrolyzed polyacrylamides (HPAM) polymers as well as a bio polymer is presented throughout this evaluation. The evaluation of the data is addressed on the basis of pressure drop across the pores, separating the shear associated pressure by the extensional thickening associated pressure. Apart from that, viscoelastic dependence of the converging-diverging geometry has been experimented. Based on the observed behavior through porous media, HPAM polymers are compared with bio polymers. Moreover, the behavior of solutions with induced mechanical degradation (pre-sheared) is compared with non-sheared solutions. Similarly, concentrations with different polymer solutions are evaluated. The results obtained in this work allow for additional understanding of polymer solutions behavior in flooding applications. Furthermore The results support the definition of optimized workflows to assess their behavior under flow through porous media. Finally this evaluation helps to describe the parameter that defines polymer viscoelastic properties.

Viscoelasticity, Mechanical Degradation, Elongational Viscosity, Weissenberg Number

Tahir, M. , Hincapie, R. , Be, M. and Ganzer, L. (2017) A Comprehensive Combination of Apparent and Shear Viscoelastic Data during Polymer Flooding for EOR Evaluations. World Journal of Engineering and Technology, 5, 585-600. doi: 10.4236/wjet.2017.54050.