Design of Two-Phase Displacement Experiments

Abstract

This paper presents and demonstrates a systematic approach to the selection of experimental designs leading to accurate estimates of relative permeability and capillary pressure functions for two-phase flow in porous media. The objective is to select the most appropriate experimental designs for determining the flow functions accurately within the saturation range covered by the experimental data. The work is based on a linearized covariance analysis. In this analysis we utilize analytical sensitivity coefficients to calculate confidence intervals for the flow functions. These confidence intervals are estimates of the accuracy with which the flow functions can be determined for a given experimental design. We validate the confidence interval estimates through a Monte Carlo study. A previously reported non-linearity measure seems not to be applicable for determining the utility of the linearized covariance analysis for the porous media fluid flow model.

Keywords:

• Relative Permeability
• Design Of Experiments
• Accuracy Analysis
• Non-linearity