Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Commons^™

Elastic Waves Push Organic Fluids From Reservoir Rock, Igor A. Beresnev, R. Dennis Vigil, Wenqing Li, Wayne D. Pennington, Roger M. Turpening, Pavel P. Iassonov, Robert P. Ewing

R. Dennis Vigil

Elastic waves have been observed to increase productivity of oil wells, although the reason for the vibratory mobilization of the residual organic fluids has remained unclear. Residual oil is entrapped as ganglia in pore constrictions because of resisting capillary forces. An external pressure gradient exceeding an ‘‘unplugging’’ threshold is needed to carry the ganglia through. The vibrations help overcome this resistance by adding an oscillatory inertial forcing to the external gradient; when the vibratory forcing acts along the gradient and the threshold is exceeded, instant ‘‘unplugging’’ occurs. The mobilization effect is proportional to the amplitude and inversely proportional to the …