Experimental Investigation of Fractures Parameters Effect on the Oil Recovery Using Nanofluids

The unique and new nanotechnology has the potential to make significant changes in various fields of oil and gas. Recent researches have illustrated that increase of oil recovery is caused by the presence of nanoparticles in water injection. Since the production from fractured reservoirs is an important part of world’s oil generation, in this research, the influence of various fracture parameters; such as, length, angle, position and the number of fracture have been studied during the injection of nanofluid with 1 wt% silica nanoparticles. Related measurements with nanofluids stability show the proper constancy of silica nanoparticles. After analyzing the taken pictures at specified intervals, the oil recovery is calculated in each injection process. In addition, to investigate the effective mechanisms in enhanced oil recovery, the injected fluid viscosity and also the interfacial tension has been measured. Results show that silica nanoparticles have positive impacts on enhanced oil recovery in all models. Also reviewing the microscopic data indicates that nanoparticles have influence on wettability alteration of environment into hydrophilic state in parts of the micromodel. Investigation of effective parameters shows that by increasing the fracture length, the oil recovery factor has been decreased to 8/42. Further, the fracture existence perpendicular to the flow path leads to more oil recovery factor (3/38 for nanofluid injection). In addition, by decreasing the fracture distance from the oil production area, the recovery improves, and also the existence of two parallel fractures has increased the oil production to 4/2.