Journal of the Korean Society of Mineral and Energy Resources Engineers ISSN:2288-0291(Print) 2288-2790(Online) 한국자원공학회지

Although much is known about foam mechanism in porous media, simulation of foam rheology still remains unresolved and challenging due to its complex nature. Foam cannot sustain if a porous medium becomes so dry that water saturation (Sw) becomes lower than the limiting water saturation (Sw*), Sw < Sw*. In the presence of foam, a porous medium can exhibit two very different states, one at relatively low Sw near Sw* (i.e., Sw～Sw*) and the other at relatively high Sw (i.e., Sw >Sw*). Even though a proto-type foam simulation built with lamella mobilization-and-division mechanism works successfully at high Sw, the simulation technique fails near Sw* due to the singularity in lamella destruction. This study is dedicated to the investigation of how the singularity near Sw* can be treated in the modeling and simulation. Incorporating a new lamella-creation function that levels off at high pressure gradient (∇P) makes numerical calculations stable and converged at Sw～Sw*. This new lamella-creation function is physically sound and truly represents the pore-scale event.