Wettability Control on Hydro-capillary Fracturing in Granular Media

Abstract:

The flow of two or more immiscible phases within geologic porous media is important in natural and industrial processes like geologic CO2 sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, and hydraulic fracturing. The latter one, however, is a well-known reservoir stimulation technique, by which the permeability of the near-wellbore region is enhanced through the creation of tensile fractures within the rock, formed in the direction perpendicular to the least principal stress. While it is well known that fracturing of granular media strongly depends on the type of media and on the variability of its wetting properties, the effect of wettability on capillary-driven fracturing continues to challenge our microscopic and macroscopic descriptions. Here we study this problem experimentally, starting with the classic experiment of two-phase flow in a horizontal Hele-Shaw cell filled with a granular medium. We inject a low-viscosity fluid into a thin bed of glass beads initially saturated with a fluid 350 times more viscous. We investigate three control parameters: the injection rate of the less-viscous invading phase, the confining stress, and the contact angle, which we control by carefully chosen fluid pairs covering the entire range from drainage to imbibition. Our results demonstrate that wettability exerts a powerful influence on the invasion/fracturing morphology of unfavorable mobility displacements. High time resolution imaging techniques and particle image velocimetry (PIV) allow us to quantify matrix displacement and fracture opening dynamics. Our findings provide insights on fracture propagation, fracture length distribution and the fracture drainage area, parameters which are critically important to better understand long-term hydrocarbon production from shale.