DIFFUSIVITY EQUATION

THUS
 Van Everdingen & Hurst unsteady state model

VEH model required DIFFUSIVITY EQUATION FOR RADIAL

FLOW

Developing flow equations for Radial Flow system

– Continuity equation
– Equation of fluid motion (Darcy’s Equation)
– Substitute Darcy’s Equation into continuity
equation
 Van Everdingen & Hurst unsteady state model

The diffusivity equation in radial form expresses the relation

between pressure and radius and time for a radial system such as
drainage from an aquifer, where the driving potential of the system
is the water expandability and the rock compressibility:

∂ 2p 1 ∂p φµc ∂p k
------ + --- ------ = ------- ----- where η = ----------
∂r2 r ∂r k δt φµc

An exact analytical solution of the diffusivity equation for specified

boundary and initial conditions define this pressure time profile
and therefore will allow the calculation of the rate of water influx
into the reservoir, provided the proper data are available.
The VEH analysis was for two cases
(a)The pressure case: the pressure at the inside boundary is
known and the outside boundary is closed or the reservoir is
infinite
(b)The rate case: the rate is known at the inside boundary. At the
outside boundary there is no flow or the pressure is constant or
the reservoir is infinite
To enable VEH analysis to be applicable for different reservoirs, they
produced a more general equation by generating dimensionless
functions

Dimensionless time tD, in place of real time, t

Dimensionless radius, rD, which is re/ro
where re is the radius of aquifer and
ro is the radius of oil reservoir
The dimensionless form of the diffusivity equation is, tD = time, dimensionless
1 ∂ ∂pD ∂pD t = time, seconds
---- ----- rD ------ = ----- k = permeability, darcy
rD ∂rD ∂rD ∂tD
µ = viscosity, centipoise
THIS EQUATION IS USED IN WELL TESTING Ø = porosity, fraction
c = effective aquifer
kt re 2πkh∆p compressibility vol/vol/atm
Where: tD= ---------- , rD = ------ , pD = -------------- ro = reservoir radius,
µøcro2 ro qµ centimeters

Converting the above equation to more commonly used units of

t= days; k = millidarcies; µ = centipoises, ø = fraction; c =
vol/vol/psi and r = feet then kt
tD= 6.323 x10-3 ----------
µøcro2
DAKE reproduced VEH data solution in graphical form
as below for infinite and finite reservoir
DAKE reproduced VEH data solution in graphical form
as below for infinite and finite reservoir
 Diffusivity equation

Dimensionless form of Diffusivity equation

Several slightly different solutions of dimensional diffusivity equation are

presented in the petroleum literature

This solution, which describes a classical flow problem, is referred to by

many names:
• Lord Kelvin’s point source
• Theis solution and
• Continuous line source solution
THE CONTINUOUS LINE SOURCE SOLUTION
Fig. Line source solution versus finite wellbore radius
The number of terms between parentheses in above equation depends
upon the magnitude of X and the desired accuracy
Following Table
 Can be written as an approximation

The line source solution is itself an approximation for the pressure

behavior due to a finite radius wellbore in an infinite reservoir
 Combining all these equations and solving
explicitly for real pressure any point in the
reservoir located at a distance r (ft) from a
flowing well at a constant rate q (STB/D) for
a period of time t (hours):

Applying the log approximation to the Ei function, the combined

equation becomes
The above two equations are typically used to find the pressure
drop ∆P = Pi – P( r, t) that will have occurred at any radius r from a
well producing at a rate q after the well has flowed for a time
period t.

At the well, the above equation becomes

The line corresponds to the time the
pressure transient behaves as if the
reservoir were infinite. The slope is used
to calculate the reservoir permeability.

If we plot ∆P = Pi – Pwf instead of Pwf,

as shown in Figure, then the slope m is
positive and becomes