Reservoir Chip Replicating Real Core Pore Structure
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current reservoir chip designs for studying multiphase flow and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) mechanisms lack the essential statistical structural characteristics of real cores, limiting the authenticity and effectiveness of microfluidic experiments.
Innovation Solution
A method involving the selection and scanning of real oil reservoir cores to reconstruct their three-dimensional structure, extraction of pore size distribution characteristics, and random distribution of rock particles to create a chip structure that mimics the real core's morphology, using microelectronic processing techniques to produce a chip that accurately represents the main structural features of real cores.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If artificial geometries (array structure) are used to design microfluidic chips, then the chip structure is simple and easy to manufacture, but the chip lacks important statistical information of real core structures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the copying principle by creating a virtual model that replicates the statistical structural characteristics of real core samples. The virtual model includes pore size distribution, pore connectivity, and spatial arrangement that are extracted from actual core data, allowing the microfluidic chip to represent real reservoir structures without requiring direct physical copies of complex natural formations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes parameter changes by adjusting key structural parameters such as pore radius, pore throat radius, and particle size distributions to match the statistical properties of real cores. The virtual model allows systematic variation of these parameters while maintaining the essential statistical characteristics, enabling the design of chips with optimized structural representation.
2Manufacturing precision
If image-based geometries are used to design chips with complex structures, then the chips appear more realistic, but the similarity of pore connectivity with real rocks is not seriously proved
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback by establishing a quantitative validation mechanism that compares the pore connectivity and flow characteristics of the designed chip structure with those of real core samples. The virtual model allows iterative refinement of the structural design based on feedback from numerical simulations and experimental measurements, ensuring that the chip accurately represents the connectivity and flow behavior of actual reservoir rocks.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces direct physical replication with a computational approach. Instead of attempting to physically reproduce complex rock structures, the method uses numerical simulations to model fluid flow and pore connectivity, then uses these simulation results to guide the design of simplified microfluidic chip structures that capture the essential flow behavior without requiring exact physical replication.
3Device complexity
If current reservoir chip designs are used, then the chip structure is simple to design, but the authenticity of experiments is severely restricted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies segmentation by dividing the complex task of replicating entire core structures into manageable components. The virtual model breaks down the core structure into discrete elements such as particles, pores, and pore throats with specific size distributions and spatial arrangements. This segmented approach allows the design of chips that capture essential statistical characteristics while maintaining design simplicity and manufacturability.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The produced reservoir chip ensures a high degree of authenticity in representing real core structures, enabling more accurate simulations of multiphase flow and EOR mechanisms, thereby enhancing the validity of microfluidic experiments and EOR technology development.
Implementation Method 1
selecting a real oil reservoir core and scanning a three-dimensional structure of the real oil reservoir core
Data Source
AI summary
The application relates to a reservoir chip and a method for producing the same. The method includes: scanning a three-dimensional structure of a real oil reservoir core and reconstructing the three-dimensional structure, extracting pore size distribution characteristics, analyzing formation of a pore structure of the real oil reservoir core and accumulation morphology of rock particles, extracting the morphology of main large particles in the rock particles and establishing a large particle morphology database; distributing and projecting particles in a porous medium of the reservoir chip, to obtain a picture of the reservoir chip structure; importing the picture into a drawing software, and drawing import and export regions of the reservoir chip structure to obtain a design drawing of the reservoir chip; and making the design drawing etched on a substrate and bonded with a heat-resistant glass anode to obtain the reservoir chip.