Formation of Internal Filter Cake due to Particle Migration in Porous Media: Fid-Bau Portal

Formation of Internal Filter Cake due to Particle Migration in Porous Media

Selvakumar, N. / Pulaganti, Neeraj / Kandasami, Ramesh Kannan

Particle migration through porous media is a complex phenomenon where the stability of the ground against deformation gets enhanced by virtue of the reduction in hydraulic conductivity. Factors such as constriction size distribution of the porous media, rheology of the injecting fluid, injection pressure/flow rate, and boundary stresses predominantly govern the particle migration. Studies have focused on controlling some of these factors and developing filtration models to quantify the maximum penetration depth. In the present study, a specially designed laboratory experimental setup is utilized to understand the effect of porosity and its corresponding constriction size distribution (CSD) of the granular media, at a particular injecting fluid viscosity and injection pressure on the particle migration characteristics. Exponential decay in injecting fluid velocity due to particle plugging, and penetration decay rate is quantified by employing imaging techniques. Image subtraction along with other image processing algorithms are used to quantify and analyze the flow stoppage mechanism due to the formation of internal filter cake. Further, existing empirical relations are found to overestimate the maximum penetration depth when compared with the experimental results.