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Improved model of water cresting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

J. F. McCarthy
J. F. McCarthy
Affiliation:
BHP Research — Melbourne Laboratories, P.O. Box 264, Clayton, Vic. 3168, Australia.
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Abstract

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An improved model of water cresting towards horizontal wells is presented, using a hodograph solution to the lateral edge drive model with a constant potential boundary at a finite outer radius. In this model, the water crest tends to a horizontal asymptote far from the well, correcting previous approaches which led to the unphysical result of a crest which never levels off but, rather, tends to a parabolic curve. The hodograph solution yields the shape of the free water-oil interface. It also yields integral representations for the lengths of boundary segments, and these have enabled the derivation of an explicit expression for the critical rate in terms of the outer radius. The critical rates calculated using the improved model do not differ significantly from those calculated using previous approaches. The main advantage of the model, therefore, is not a correction to the quantitative predictions of the critical rate, but the removal of physical inconsistencies in the underlying theory.

Type
Research Article
Information
The ANZIAM Journal , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , October 1993 , pp. 207 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Australian Mathematical Society 1993

References

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