Impact of Internal Structure on Foam Stability in Model Porous Media

Application of foam in enhanced oil recovery (eor) increases mac- roscopic sweep efficiency via awesome increscent of mobility control. the macroscopic manifestation of foam application performance in porous media is a complex process that involves several interacting microscopic foam events. stability, as an important factor in foam in- jection within large reservoirs, depends on several variables, including oil saturation, connate water salinity, and the foam texture. in addition to mentioned parameters, the internal structure is known to affect the foam stability and performance via influencing foam formation and destruction mechanisms within the porous media. in this paper, we mathematically expressed the main mechanism of snap-off for foam generation, mechanisms of capillary suction and diffusion coarsening for foam coalescences in some simplified models. then we extended the calculations to more realistic 2d spherical models of porous media which were manufactured applying some morphological parameters. simulation results show that in topologies in which the structure rep- resented a high difference in pore and throat average diameters, foam formation mechanisms were dominant, making foam flow more stable, while conversely when the path tortuosity was high, foam destruction mechanisms overcome and the stability decreased.