micro-model experimental study of fracture geometrical effect on breakthrough time in miscible displacement process

the miscible displacement process appears to be an increasingly feasible method for the extraction of oil from depleted reservoirs. how­ever, there is a lack of fundamental understanding of how fracture geometrical characteristics impact the oil recovery efficiency in this type of enhanced oil recovery technique. in this work, a series of experimental tests were conducted whereby the n-heptane as a solvent displaced n-decane in the glass micro-models having different fracture geometries. it has been observed that the breakthrough time is decreased with increasing the fractures’ length. in contrast, breakthrough time is increased when increasing the fractures orientation angle related to flow direction. a correlation has been presented for the breakthrough time as a function of fracture length and its orientation.