抄録
In this paper, the authors present the results of experimental studies of air-water two-phase flow and discuss the characteristic shape of relative permeability for a single fracture.
In the experiments, the authors prepared three transparent epoxy replicas of natural rock fractures and both water and air were injected into them to generate two-phase flow conditions. Pressures at the inlet and outlet, flow rates of both phases were measured, and the saturation was obtained by image processing of the digital photo.
A set of relative permeability curves for air-water system in a single fracture was proposed. The curves show that the water phase becomes immovable at relatively high water saturation while the relative permeability of air phase becomes rapidly high with a decrease in water saturation.
The proposed set of relative permeability curves might be useful for the quantitative interpretation of a two-phase flow through a fractured medium.
