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Oxygen Transport Under Combustion
Conditions in a Fracture-Porous
Medium System
O. Cazarez-Candia, G. Rojas Altamirano and C.G. Aguilar-Madera
Abstract
In this work the oxygen transport was modeled numerically, at pore scale,
in a matrix-fracture system saturated by nitrogen. This system appears when the
in-situ combustion (ISC) method is applied for oil recovery in fractured reservoirs.
The main aim was to study the effect of oxygen flow rate and the fracture width
on the oxygen transport from the fracture to the porous matrix due to this controls
the combustion front propagation. The porous matrix microstructure was modeled
as a medium composed by circular particles in a periodic arrangement. In order to
simulate the combustion reaction that occurs in an in-situ combustion process, the
coke-oxygen reaction was taken into account on the particles surface. The gas, coke
and oxygen mass balances as well as the gas momentum balance were resolved using
a software that involves the finite element technique. The oxygen distribution was
studied in the matrix-fracture system as a function of: (1) the oxygen flow rate, and
(2) the fracture width. It was found that increasing such parameters stimulate the
coke consumption. Moreover, they increase the oxygen transport from the fracture
to the matrix.
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