STUDY ON WATER-NAPL-AIR THREE-PHASE CAPILLARY PRESSURE-SATURATION RELATIONSHIPS OF SAND BASED ON THE PRESSURE-PLATE AND THE GRAVITY DRAINAGE COLUMN EXPERIMENTS

Abstract

The pressure-plate and the gravity drainage column experiments were conducted to confirm the efficiency of the empirical equations explaining the Water-NAPL-Air three-phase capillary pressure-saturation relationships. The pressure-plate experiments showed that water saturation is identical to the water retention characteristics under air-water two-phase condition. On the other hands, the gravity drainage column experiments showed that total liquid saturation distribution under three-phase condition was not agreed with the oil retention characteristics under air-oil two-phase condition, when oil thickness was thin.