Sharif Digital Repository

A droplet placed on the boundary of two solids with different wettabilities will move to the more wettable part. This is a well-known phenomenon and has been extensively used in a variety of processes and applications ranging from biological systems and ink jet printing to the commercial lab-on-a-chip. Because of its importance, many studies are conducted around this phenomenon. The difference between the equilibrium contact angles of the droplet on the two parts gives rise to an interfacial driving force which moves the droplet. Such a motion is not continuous as the droplet slides to the more wettable area, the driving force diminishes and consequently the droplet stops. A non-stop motion... 

Drop penetration into the capillary tube, as a classical problem, has been studied over 100 years. But there are a few studies that investigate forced impregnation of capillary tubes, which has major application in coating, inkjet printing and rain drop penetration into the soil, have been made. A comprehensive numerical investigation on millimeter droplet impact dynamics on a thick capillary tube with micrometer sized pore is conducted and validated against experimental data. This work is extended to oblique impact of drops into pores and normal impact on nanoscaled pores. We apply the finite volume numerical method to solve the time-dependent governing equations of continuity, momentum in... 

Nowadays, due to limitation of production from conventional oil reservoirs, enhanced recovery from heavy oil reservoirs is of great concern. However, production from these energy resources is not a simple task and production using common technologies is not easily exploitable. Heterogeneous structure and also high surface tension between injected fluid and reservoir oil are of the main challenges during water flooding processes in heavy oil reservoirs. The high surface tension force causes a large part of the oil remains in the reservoir after the water flooding operation. One method for overcoming this problem is the use of surfactants that reduces capillary forces and consequently... 

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... 

The assessment of fluid transport in porous media is the main subject in oil reservoirs to understand the oil recovery efficiency. The efficiency of Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) processes depends on the surface properties and wetting behavior of oil reservoir rocks which are also affected by the electrokinetic behavior of solid part of the porous rock. Streaming potential measurement is one of the techniques to determine the electrokinetic properties. The streaming potential measurements using electrodes have recently been introduced in oil field applications and there are still significant uncertainties during the measurements and interpretation of streaming potential results. The Primarily... 

From previous years, water injection was considered as one of the most common methods for enhanced oil recovery. But recently much attention has been paid on the use of low salinity water (LSW) as an enhanced oil recovery fluid. The main mechanism that causes improve oil recovery is wettability alteration to a more water wet state. The change observed in recovery factor during LSW flooding induced from changes in relative permeability and capillary pressure when different levels of salinity are used. However, a few researchers tried to evaluate how macroscopic flow functions depend on the salinity of injected water. To this end, a series oil displacements by water performed on sandstone rock... 

One the basic challenges during drilling of both vertical and horizontal wellbores is due to mud filtrate invasion into the formation. Addition of nanoparticles to composition of drilling fluid has been recognized as a measure of control and reduction of filtrate invasion. Despite notable advances in formulation of nano-enhanced drilling fluids, effects of surface wettability of nanoparticles on their performance have not been studied with any precision. Moreover, return permeability of a grain packed porous media after extreme invasion by mud filtrate has not been experimentally measured in a radial system, yet. The last but not least, Generation and development of mud cake opposite the... 

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... 

Oil reservoirs, have integrated identity; that is they consist of different parameters such as wettablity, initial water saturation, capillary and gravity forces, etc. which are related to each other and affect ultimate recovery simultaneously. In fractured reservoirs, other parameters such as fractures and complex geological structures are also considered  among  important  parameters  which  affect  ultimate  recovery.  Due  to  large  amount  of reserves,  fractured  reservoirs  are  subject  to  different  studies  and  simulations.  In  this  research, different  parameters  which  affect  ultimate  recovery  in  fractured  reservoirs,  are  studied  and simulated. Different  studies ... 

Nanoparticles can be applied as chemical agent in enhnaced oil recovery like surfactants and polymers. One of nanoparticles usefull capabilities is modification of their surface. This research investigates this capabilty of nanoparticles in enhanced oil recovery. Surface modification of nanoparticles with both agents can bring new abilities to these materials. Here surface of silica nanoparticles is modified by hydrophilic agent comprising PEG groups, hydrophobic agent comprising propyl group and both agents. FT-IR tests showed that grafting of modifiyng agents on surface of nanoparticles is well done. To investigate effect of nanoparticles surface modification on nanoparticles capability in... 

Recent studies in nanotechnology field have shown this technology could solve many challenges and needs in oil and gas industry. As yet, many applications of nanoparticles in enhanced oil recovery have been reported. One of the most important applications is wettability alteration due to presence of nanoparticles in injecting fluid, which has recently been studied by several research groups. These studies indicate that, presence of nanoparticles in injecting water would improve oil recovery. However, there is no adequate information about the mechanisms affecting fluid flow in reservoir rock and its mathematical modeling.The aim of this project is to evaluate the effect of injection of... 

In this research we aim to find enhance oil recovery mechanisms involved in nano-bio material injection by micro model apparatus which has not been studied before. Especially for injection in heavy oil and shaly porous media that forms most of heavy oil reservoirs. To this end, microscopic images from injection of nano-bio materials to shaly patterns have been taken and analyzed to find the process mechanism. Also amount of enhance oil recovery in different conditions like type of microbe forming bio material, nano-bio material concentration and type of flow pattern (shale characteristics including length, direction and distance from injection and production wells) will be studied.Three... 

There are considerable investigations on wettability alteration in carbonate reservoirs in recent years. The presence of ions including Ca, Si, Al etc in natural carbonate rocks and also the presence of various fatty acids, resins, asphaltenes etc in crude oil makes it difficult to understand the complex mechanism of wettability alteration by using surfactants. Furthermore there is still a conspicuous lack of dynamic wettability alteration model to demonstrate the dynamic behavior of cationic surfactants during wettability alteration. It is also widely accepted that cationic surfactants have substantial impact on changing the wettability of strongly oil-wet matrixes to a more water-wet... 

It is aimed in this study to numerically investigate the effect of contact angle on the heat transfer coefficient in oil-water two-phase flow. For this purpose, the finite element method (FEM) is used to solve the unsteady Navier-Stokes and energy equations. The level set method is also used to capture the interface between the phases. In the first part of the study, two-phase flow of the water and calibration oil is considered in a T-junction geometry at contact angles of 5°, 40°, and 75°. It is observed that the flow patterns formed in the microchannel depend on the initial flow condition which results in the hysteresis phenomenon. Investigating the effect of wall contact angle on the... 

Recently, the researchers try to identify the application of nanofluids for wettability alteration. Changing the wettability of reservoirs, which gas injects to them, to gas wet can lead to enhanced oil recovery. Although several studies have been conducted to introduce proper nanofluids for altering the wettability of reservoirs to gas wet, there is not enough study to investigate the application of nanocomposites for wettability alteration of carbonate reservoirs. In this study, 20 nanoparticles with different compositional structures were synthesized, and then various nanofluids were prepared for the experimental survey. Also, the potential of these nanofluids for wettability alteration... 

In order to investigate the effect of molecular-structural properties of asphaltene fraction on changes in wettability and flow of crude oil in the porous medium, four crude oil samples from oil fields in southern Iran were tested ;To know the characteristics of crude oil, molecular-structural properties of asphaltene fraction and the effect of asphaltene fraction on the wettability properties of surface, Experiments such as crude oil density and viscosity measurement, crude oil hydrocarbon analysis, asphaltene extraction with standard IP-143 method, elemental analysis and metal content, gel permeation chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance, interaction between rock and asphaltene.... 

Wettability is the cause of many interactions today and is definitely effective in almost all processes where liquid and solid phases are in contact. Wetting controls by surface engineering can accelerate the process in the industry or improve the quality of daily life. Therefore, the fabrication of complex surfaces with a specific purpose and different wettability has attracted the attention of researchers. In this thesis, silica nanoparticles were synthesized to create roughness and reduce contact between surfaces and liquids at first. Then, using chemical compounds to reduce the surface energy, a transparent (94.20%) superhydrophobic and oleophobic coating was created on the glass. The... 

So far, many studies have been carried out on the core-scale regarding the effects of hysteresis on the macro-scale properties of systems including fluids and porous rock, however, many issues related to the physics of the problem (especially regarding the way fluids are distributed and the trapping of the non-wetting phase) at the pore-scale need further investigation. In the process of multiphase fluid flow in porous media, hysteresis refers to the dependence of the results of the fluids’ displacements on the history of fluid saturation and the direction of saturation changes (increasing or decreasing). The first step to investigate the hysteresis effect is to determine the amount of fluid... 

During all operations in hydrocarbon reservoirs, there is a possibility of formation damage. These damages can reduce the production of fluids from reservoir. One of the major damages that can seriously affect the performance of a reservoir is the damage caused by drilling fluid. The main purpose of this research is to study the main mechanisms of formation damages when using oil-based drilling fluids and fixing or preventing these damages. Once the mechanisms are identified, it is tried to cure the damages but without acid-washing. The alternative method is surfactant-washing which is a surfactant-brine injection. This injection has been done for the first time. This study helps to industry...