Rules for Flight Paths and Time of Flight for Flows in Porous Media with Heterogeneous Permeability and Porosity

Figure 9

Streamlines (red curves) and flood flight times (rainbow colors). (a) Domains of higher permeability result in local decrease in TOF. Matrix permeability is 100 mD; rectangular central zone between injectors and producers has permeability of 1000 mD. Porosity is equal in both domains (20%). (b) Decrease of TOF in high permeability domain is undone when porosity in low permeability domain is adjusted from 20% to 80%. (c) Reversely, TOF can be decreased still further as compared to (a) when porosity is adjusted from 20% to 5%.

(a)

(b)

(c)