LaVaun S. Merrill

Numerical Simulation of Water Imbibition in Fractured Cores

A 2-dimensional, 2-phase, semi-implicit, numerical simulator was used to simulate water imbibition and oil recovery in artificially fractured and unfractured cores. Experimental results were satisfactorily matched by the numerical simulator. These results provide evidence of the reliability of the concepts underlying an earlier numerical simulator which was tailored specifically for field applications. It is shown that the flow equations used in matching the laboratory data reduce to the equations used in the field simulator. In addition, the experiments themselves were run in a manner quite different from those commonly used in imbibition experiments and give added insight into oil recovery from fractured reservoirs.

The coal—oxygen reaction near the ignition temperature

Abstract A differential thermal analysis method has been used to study the effects of oxygen concentration, coal particle size, and coal dilution on the coal—oxygen reaction just prior to and at the ignition temperature. The conclusions from this study are: 1. (1) chemisorption of oxygen appears to be the rate-controlling step in the coal—oxygen reaction just prior to ignition, 2. (2) the ignition temperature is dependent upon the immediately preceding oxidation reactions, and 3. (3) hydrogen, methane and trace amounts of C 2′ s and C 3′ s are evolved for a brief period just at ignition.