Heat transfer ahead of moving condensation fronts in thermal oil recovery processes

Abstract

This is a study of heat transfer in the liquid zone preceding an advancing condensation front in a 1-dim oil reservoir undergoing a thermal recovery process such as hot waterflood, steam injection or in situ combustion. A model is developed that allows for heat transfer by horizontal conduction and convection in the reservoir and by vertical (conjugate) conduction in the surrounding the reservoir formations to account for the lateral heat losses. The model is formulated in terms of an integro-differential equation involving an integral representation of the lateral heat losses for a region with a moving boundary. According to the magnitude of the Peclet number, and the velocity of the advancing front, various analytical expressions that describe the temperature distribution in the hot liquid zone are derived. The discussion emphasizes the cases Pe ⪢ 1 (high injection rates) and Pe = 1 (low injection rates). The case of arbitrary Pe is treated by a quasisteady state approximation.

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