Analysis of Nitrogen and Steam Injection in a Porous Medium with Water

Johannes Bruining | Marchesin, Dan

Keywords: Steam Injection | thermal recovery | Porous media | multiphase flow | hyperbolic systems | bifurcation

We formulate conservation laws governing steam and nitrogen injection in a one-dimensional porous medium containing water. Compressibility, heat conductivity and capillarity are neglegted. We study the condensation front and shock waves arising in the flow. We find that there are four possible types of solutions for the initial and boundary conditions of interest. We describe a simple construction in the temperature saturation plane that determines the complete solution for the given conditions. Applications of the theory developed here are in clean up of soil contaminated with non-aqueous phase liquids. We show that a substancial cold gaseous zone develops in all solutions of practical interest, thus counteracting downward migration of the pollutant.

Anexos:

• nitro.pdf