Impact Of Time-Dependent Wettability Alteration On Dynamic Capillary Pressure

Abstract

Summary In many applications, the wettability of the rock surface is assumed to be constant in time and uniform in space. However, many fluids are capable to alter the wettability of rock surfaces permanently and dynamically in time. We simulate the dynamic system using a bundle-of-tubes (BoT) approach, where an empirical model for contact angle change is introduced at the pore scale. The resulting capillary pressure curves are then used to correlate the time-dependent term to the upscaled version of the wettability model. This study shows the importance of time-dependent wettability for determining capillary pressure over timescales of weeks and months. The impact of wettability has implications for experimental methodology as well as macroscale simulation of wettability-altering fluids.