Effect of Seepage Velocity on Pore Clogging Growth Behavior and Its Effect on Permeability Reduction During Fines Migration in Porous Media

Abstract

Fines migration driven by fluid flows often causes pore clogging in porous media and thus reduces the permeability of the porous media. The clogging can pose serious problems in various practices, such as formation damage in hydrocarbon reservoirs, degradation of fluid withdrawal or injection efficiency, particle-induced fouling in filtration membranes, or even a risk of sediment failure with geostructures. However, the effect of seepage flow velocity on the spatial growth pattern of fines-induced pore clogging remains poorly identified. This study explores the pore clogging growth behaviors caused by flow-driven fines migration and accumulation in porous media and the associated permeability reductions through a series of column experiments and concurrent X-ray computed tomography imaging. Particularly, the X-ray image analysis captures the spatial distributions of fines, and thus the homogeneous or heterogeneous (localized) clogging growth pattern under various seepage velocities. Our results reveal that an increase in the seepage flow velocity increases the likelihood of localized clogging growth, attributable to the direct interception of fines by the sand grains. The localized clogging growth causes a faster reduction in permeability than the homogeneous clogging growth. The presented study provides well-controlled experiment data on fines distribution and associated permeability change, which gives insights into fines-induced clogging behavior in porous media.