An extended theory to predict the onset of viscous instabilities for miscible displacements in porous media

Many enhanced oil recovery schemes involve the displacement of oil by a miscible fluid. Whether a displacement is stable or unstable has a profound effect on how efficiently a solvent displaces oil within a reservoir. That is, if viscous fingers are present, the displacement efficiency and, hence, the economic return of the recovery scheme is seriously impaired bacause of macroscopic bypassing of the oil. As a consequence, it is of interest to be able to predict the boundary which separates stable displacements from those which are unstable.This paper presents a dimensionless scaling group for predicting the onset of hydrodynamic instability of a miscible displacement in porous media. An existing linear perturbation analysis was extended in order to obtain the scaling group. The new scaling group differs from those obtained in previous studies because it takes into account a variable unperturbed concentration profile, both transverse dimensions of the porous medium, and both the longitudinal and the transverse dispersion coefficient.It has been shown that stability criteria derived in the literature are special cases of the general condition given here. Therefore, the stability criterion obtained in this study should be used for a displacement conducted under arbitrary conditions. The stability criterion is verified by comparing it with miscible displacement experiments carried out in a Hele-Shaw cell. Moreover, a comparison of the theory with some porous medium experiments from the literature also supports the validity of the theory.