Pore-Scale Study of Gas Flows in Ultra-tight Porous Media

Completed

Fossil Fuels: Oil Gas and Coal(Oil and Gas, Non-conventional oil and gas production)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Metallurgy and Materials)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr Y Zhang
Mechanical Engineering
University of Strathclyde

Standard

EPSRC

01 September 2015

30 September 2019

49 months

£379,691

Energy

Scotland

Energy : Energy

Dr Y Zhang, Mechanical Engineering, University of Strathclyde

Dr T Scanlon, Mechanical Engineering, University of Strathclyde

Project Contact, iRock Technologies
Project Contact, TUV NEL Ltd
Project Contact, Chevron Energy Technology Company, USA

To enhance ultimate recovery of hydrocarbon gases from unconventional gas resources such as shales, we need to uncover the non-intuitive gas transport mechanisms in ultra-tight porous media. Exploiting our previous and recent pioneering work in modelling rarefied gas flows at micro/nano-scales and in pore-scale characterisation of reservoir rocks, we present an ambitious project to tackle this newly-emerged research challenge through developing direct numerical simulation models and techniques that work on binarised images of concerned porous materials. This work will transform the currently-adopted heuristic approaches, i.e. Darcy-like laws and pore network modelling, into those underpinned by the first principle, and enable the quantification of prediction uncertainty on gas transport associated with the former approaches. Timely support now from EPSRC will provide us crucial resources to shape this emerging research area - understanding and quantifying gas flow physics in ultra-tight porous media

10/11/15