Solids production in porous media Experiments, models and simulations

Euripides Papamichos
Department of Civil Engineering
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Abstract

Solids production in porous media such as sand or chalk remains a major issue for conventional oil production. In sandstone fields, sand quantification is becoming an important analysis tool even in sand controlled wells. A review of recent advances in experiments, theory, and analysis in sand rate quantification will be presented. Laboratory experiments concentrate on the effects of water breakthrough, multiphase flow, and the scale effect on solids production rate. Theoretical models concentrate on the coupled description of the erosion-mechanical problem using finite element and discrete element analyses. In chalk, new completion techniques like acidizing are applied to improve stability and productivity. Laboratory experiments in acidized chalk tests will be presented and the stability of acidized boreholes is analyzed.

Bio

Euripides Papamichos is Professor of Mechanics and Director of the Mechanics of Materials Laboratory at the Department of Civil Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. He is also a Senior Scientist at the Formation Physics Department of SINTEF Petroleum Research in Trondheim, Norway. His work includes a variety of petroleum- related geomechanical problems such as sand and chalk production and mechanics, reservoir compaction and subsidence, reservoir geomechanics, and core damage. He has expertise in constitutive and numerical modeling, in thermo-poro-elasto-plasticity, damage mechanics, and micromechanics of granular materials. He is author of over 120 scientific publications and four books and entertains more than 1200 citations in his work. He has been Principal Investigator of over 20 industry and state sponsored research projects. He holds a Diploma in Mining and Metallurgical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, and MSc and PhD in Civil Engineering under Prof. I Vardoulakis from the University of Minnesota, U.S.A. Previously he worked as a Research Scientist for Elf Aquitaine Production in Pau, France and a Research Associate at the Univ of Colorado at Boulder, Colorado, U.S.A.

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2013 Vardoulakis Lecture

This lecture is named in honor of Ioannis Vardoulakis, a former faculty member and internationally renowned researcher in geoengineering, who tragically passed away in September 2009. Prof. Vardoulakis joined the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in 1980, where he earned the rank of professor in seven years. In 1990, he returned to Greece and he was a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Physics at the National Technical University of Athens. He received a diploma of civil engineering in structures from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece in 1972, and a doctor of engineering (with highest honors) in soil mechanics from the University of Karlsruhe, Germany in 1977. He was born on February 28, 1949, and he passed away on September 19, 2009.