Investigation of Mechanisms for Gravity Drainage of Heavy Oil and Solvent Mixtures in a Hele-Shaw Cell

One reason it is challenging to predict oil recovery rates from solvent-based heavy oil recovery methods is that the interplay of the mass transfer and convective flow mechanisms is not well understood. An apparatus was designed and commissioned to investigate these mechanisms in a controllable flow geometry. The apparatus consisted of a Hele-Shaw cell (parallel glass plates) that was partially filled with bitumen and rotated to set a target...