CT imaging of steam and steam/foam laboratory experiments

This paper reports on the CT imaging technique together with temperature and pressure measurements used to follow the steam propagation during steam and steam foam injection experiments in a three dimensional laboratory steam injection model. During the design period, the advantages and disadvantages of different geometries were examined to find out which could best represent radial and gravity override flows and also fit the dimensions of the scanning field of the CT scanner. As a result of this analysis a 3D rectangular box with dimensions 20 x 20 x 7.5 cm was constructed. This box simulates one quarter of a five spot pattern. Aluminum, Teflon and Fiberfrax were chosen as supporting and insulating materials. Teflon was placed between the porous medium and the aluminum shell so that the rate of heat transfer in the porous medium would be much faster than that in the aluminum during a steam injection run. During experiments, steam was injected continuously at a constant rate into the water saturated model and CT scans were taken at six different cross sections of the model