Non-Darcy Porous Media Flow According to the Barree and Conway Model: Laboratory and Numerical Modeling Studies

This paper (SPE 122611) was accepted for presentation at the SPE Rocky Mountain Petroleum Technology Conference, Denver, 14–16 April 2009, and revised for publication. Original manuscript received for review 20 February 2009. Revised manuscript received for review 16 February 2011. Paper peer approved 10 March 2011. Summary This paper presents the results of our new experimental studies conducted for high flow rates through proppant packs, which show that the Barree and Conway (2004) flow model is capable of overcoming limitations of the Forchheimer non-Darcy equation at very high flow rates. To quantify the non-Darcy flow behavior using the Barree and Conway model, a numerical model is developed to simulate non-Darcy flow. In addition, an analytical solution is presented for steady-state linear non-Darcy flow and is used to verify the numerical-simulation results. The numerical model incorporates the Barree and Conway model into a general-purpose reservoir simulator for modeling multidimensional, single-phase non-Darcy flow in porous and fractured media and supplements the laboratory findings. The numerical model is then used to perform sensitivity analysis of the Barree and Conway flow model’s parameters and to investigate transient behavior of non-Darcy flow at an injection well.