International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhmt

Effect of temperature on the oil–water relative permeability

for sandstone reservoirs
Lie-hui Zhang, Jing Tong, Yu Xiong, Yu-long Zhao ⇑
The State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Southwest Petroleum University, Chengdu, PR China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Temperature has a significant effect on oil–water relative permeability, which is very important in reser-
Received 23 June 2016 voir development. Considerable controversy persists regarding the effects of temperature and concerning
Received in revised form 6 October 2016 how to obtain representative relative permeability curves. This work studies the effect of temperature on
Accepted 8 October 2016
the oil–water relative permeability of tight sandstone and analyzes the influences of absolute permeabil-
Available online 13 October 2016
ity, clay mineral content, and pore throat structure on relative permeability curves at different temper-
atures. The results indicate that irreducible water saturation increases linearly with temperature
Keywords:
increase, while residual oil saturation decreases nonlinearly with temperature increase. In addition, when
High temperature
Sandstone reservoir
temperature increases, both oil and water relative permeability increase under the same water saturation
Relative permeability and the crossover saturation moves rightwards, which indicates that the system becomes more water-
Translate wet. Due to the significant effect of temperature on relative permeability, experimental results from
lab tests cannot accurately reflect fluid flow characteristics under the reservoir condition. In order to
overcome this problem, this paper proposes a novel method to translate lab results into reservoir values
by combining the Johnson–Bossler–Naumann (JBN) technique and the empirical method. The comparison
between the calculation and the lab results is consistent. The conclusions of the paper provide a valuable
reference for laboratory tests under high temperature, and they can be used for preliminary evaluation
purposes.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Geffen et al. [19] started researching the influence of tempera-

As an indispensable part of reservoir numerical simulation,
dynamic analysis, and field performance prediction, oil–water rel-
ative permeability curves can be used to describe the flow charac-
teristics of the oil–water two-phase displacement system in porous
media. Some basic methods to determine relative permeability
have been applied successfully. These methods include field or lab-
oratory measurement and theoretical modeling [21,41,51,57,9,7].
Among the most recent research work, the methods can be divided
into analytical, laboratorial, empirical, and numerical methods
[1,46]. Four major categories are used to test relative permeability
in the lab: (a) the steady-state method, (b) the unsteady-state
method, (c) the capillary manometric method, and (d) empirical
models. In addition, many published papers have reported the
effects of temperature on oil–water relative permeability with dif-
ferent test methods, and different results and conclusions have
been drawn, as shown in Table 1.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: 373104686@qq.com, swpuzhao@swpu.edu.cn (Y.-l. Zhao).
ture on relative permeability in the 1950s. They first proposed that
laboratory tests to represent real fluid flow in a reservoir must
have a similar saturation history, as relative permeability is not a
single-value function of saturation. Moreover, special care should
be taken to disallow wettability change, at elevated temperatures,
during relative permeability measurements.
The relationships between temperature and relative permeabil-
ity can be divided into two major categories: independency and
dependency. Based on the test data of Edmondson [16] and
Shilolwd [45] conducted further study and drew an opposite con-
clusion, which was that relative permeability versus normalized
saturation is independent of temperature. Later, similar trends
were also observed that temperature has no effect on relative per-
meability [48,36,39,4]. Dynamic-displacement experiments were
conducted by Kumar and Inouye [28]. They used light oil in a test
at a temperature range of 20–150 °C. Their results showed that
endpoint saturations are independent of temperature and are pri-
marily a function of the viscosity ratio. These results are consistent
with the viewpoint of Lefebvre du Prey [30], who believed that
relative permeability was related to capillary to viscous forces.
Nourmohammad et al. [38] emphasized that experimental

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2016.10.029
0017-9310/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
536 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548
Nomenclature
K rw ðSw Þ water relative permeability, fraction
K ro ðSw Þ oil relative permeability, fraction
Sw water saturation, fraction
Swi irreducible water saturation, fraction
Sor residual oil saturation, fraction
f o ðSw Þ oil ratio, fraction
V ðtÞ cumulative fluid production, cm3
V ðtÞ dimensionless cumulative fluid production, percentage
of pore volume
Vp pore volumes, cm3
Vo cumulative oil production, cm3
V oðtÞ dimensionless cumulative oil production, percentage of
pore volume
conditions should be considered accurately to find the true tem-
perature effect on relative permeability, as the results of the mea-
surements indicated no significant temperature effect on relative
permeability curves and residual saturation for the system tested.
The dependency of relative permeability curves on temperature
includes three categories: (a) change in the oil–water relative per-
meability ratio, (b) the contrary tendency of relative permeability
value to water and oil, and (c) both the decrease and increase of
the oil–water relative permeability value at elevated temperatures.
Davidson [15] conducted isothermal displacements by an
unsteady state method and reported that the oil–water relative
permeability ratio tended to be temperature dependent at a low
and higher water saturation but independent of temperature at a
middle water saturation, which was consistent with Edmondson
[16] experimental result. Ehrlich [17] further stated that the oil–
water relative permeability ratio increased in unconsolidated sand
and decreased in consolidated sand. Utilizing both steady-state
and unsteady-state technology, Kumar et al. [29] investigated the
influence of elevating temperature, and the experimental results
suggested that the relative permeability curves sensibly showed
higher water wetness at higher temperatures. Sola et al. [43] and
Wang et al. [52] reported a similar relative permeability trend for
limestone using heavy oil at a temperature range of 37.8–93 °C
and for sandstone using light oil at a temperature range of 40–
100 °C, respectively. While opposite retrograde behavior was
observed by Esfahania and Haghighi [18], their research results
indicated that Iranian carbonate rocks became more oil-wet using
light oil at room and reservoir temperatures. On the other hand,
Karaei et al. [23] proposed that wettability was independent of
temperature.
Some reports show that the value of oil relative permeability
increases at higher temperatures while the value of water relative
permeability decreases [47,50,5,59,61]. Unlike these studies, Maini
and Batycky [33] proposed that the oil endpoint relative perme-
ability decreased with an increase in temperature while the water
endpoint relative permeability remained unchanged. Furthermore,
although irreducible water saturation was found to increase grad-
ually, residual oil saturation first decreased with an increase of
temperature and then the trend reversed when the temperature
increased to an optimum level [34].
Watson and Ertekin [54] studied the effect of temperature
gradient on relative permeability and their experimental results
indicated that both the oil and water relative permeability
decreased at a high rate with an increasing temperature gradient.
Sola et al. [43] also obtained similar trends and found that the
I value of relative injectivity, also known as flowing
capacity ratio; as for displacement of constant speed
mode, I ¼ DDPPðtÞo
Q ðtÞ liquid production of outlet at time t, cm3/s
Q 1ðtÞ liquid production of outlet at the initial time, cm3/s
DP ðtÞ displacement pressure difference at the initial time,
MPa
DP o displacement pressure difference at time t, MPa
K orw water relative permeability at residual oil saturation,
fraction
K oro oil relative permeability at irreducible water saturation,
fraction
SwD normalized water saturation, fraction
relative permeability of oil and water, as functions of temperature,
decreased with an increase in temperature.
As shown in the research overview in Table 1, most scholars
observed a similar tendency that both oil and water relative per-
meability increased as the injection temperature increased
[40,32,55,13,37,35,42,60,62,10,44,64,22]. They also reported an
increase in irreducible water saturation and a decrease in resid-
ual oil saturation as the temperature of the system increased.
This shift in saturation results in some changes in the value of
relative permeability as well. Kamari et al. [24,25] further
observed that irreducible water saturation and residual oil satu-
ration had significant impact on the oil recovery and oil relative
permeability. Li et al. [31] indicated that high temperature pro-
duced high ultimate oil recovery, and relative permeability
curves had a tendency to move to the right with an increase of
temperature.
Among recent research work, a novel observation was observed
that relative permeability increases with temperature only under a
certain range of temperatures. Then the trend reverses as the tem-
perature rises further. Akhlaghinia et al. [2] used two core-flooding
setups to measure heavy oil–water relative permeability at three
different temperatures: 28 °C, 40 °C, and 52 °C. Analysis of the data
showed that the oil relative permeability first increased from 28 °C
to 40 °C and then it decreased when the temperature ranged from
40 °C to 52 °C. This means that the oil relative permeability shifts
up until an optimum temperature somewhere between 40 and
52 °C is reached and then the trend reverses as the temperature
increases further [2,3,49]. Compared to the studies of other
researchers, the effect of temperature on water relative permeabil-
ity is the same as the results observed by Bennion et al. [12] and
Hamouda et al. [20].
On the basis of their literature review, analysis, and experi-
ments, they stated that it was not possible to justify a unique trend
of the relative permeability, even though the range of water satu-
ration changes. Therefore, it seemed necessary to conduct our own
core flooding experiments and investigate the dependency of rela-
tive permeability curves on temperature. Besides, experimental
results at the lab state cannot reflect fluid flow characteristics
under reservoir conditions, as the relative permeability is affected
by temperature significantly. The objective of this paper was
accomplished by performing core flooding experiments, investigat-
ing and analyzing the effects of temperature on sandstones cores
with different permeability at different temperatures, and propos-
ing a rapid and simple method to translate the lab results into
reservoir values.
 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548 537

Table 1
Summary of studies addressing the effect of temperature on relative permeability curves.

Researcher(s) Method Materials Temperature Effect of increasing temperature on

Range Krw and Kro
Porous media Viscosity
(°C)
(mPas) Krw Kro
Independency Shilolwd [45] – – – – Independent Independent
Lefebvre du Prey [30] Unsteady state Teflon-alumina- 0.56–60 @ 24 Dependency on capillary to viscous
steel 20 °C forces
Sufi et al. [48] Steady state Ottawa sand Not reported 20–85 Independent Independent
Miller and Ramey [36] Unsteady state Sand core 30 @ 21 21–149 Independent Independent
Polikar et al. [39] Steady state, Athabasca sand pack 77 @ 52 °C 52–120 Independent Independent
unsteady state
Kumar and Inouye Unsteady state Core 32.1 @ 38 °C 20–150 Dependency on viscosity and
[28] wettability
Akin et al. [4] Unsteady state Core 320 @ 20 °C 20–65 Independent Independent
Nourmohammad et al. Steady state, Unconsolidated crushed — — Independent Independent
[38] unsteady state carbonate
Dependency Edmondson [16] Unsteady state Core 40–600 @ 24–260 krw/kro less sloped
38 °C
Davidson [15] Unsteady state Sandpack 5.7 mD 65 @ 38 °C 24–282 krw/kro less sloped
Poston et al. [40] Unsteady state Sandpack 80–600 @ 20–150 Increase Increase
20 °C
Ehrlich [17] Analytical Sandpack Not reported 24–104 krw/kro increases in unconsolidated
sand
krw/kro decreases in consolidated
sand
Sinnokrot [47] Restored-state Sandstone Not reported 15.6–162.8 Decrease Increase
method limestone
Lo and Mungan [32] Steady state Teflon core 2–130 @ 20 °C 24–150 increase Increase
Weinbrandt et al. [55] Steady state Core 65 @ 38 °C 26–157 Increase Increase
Casse and Ramey [13] Unsteady state Sand core Not reported 21.1–162.8 Increase A slight increase
Torabzadeh and Steady state, Core 1–2 @ 22 °C 22–175 Decrease Increase
Handy [50] unsteady state
Maini and Batycky Unsteady state Bitumen 16400 @ 24 °C 20–272 Independent Decrease
[33] plugs
Kumar et al. [29] Steady state, Core Not reported 22–175 More water wetness
unsteady state
Nakornthap and Evans Analytical Not applicable 19.95 @ 38 °C 20–120 Increase Increase
[37]
Maini and Okazawa Unsteady state Silica sand 1190 @ 21 °C 25–200 Increase Increase
[35]
3 6
Closmann et al. [14] Steady state Sand core 10 —10 @ 20–196 Shift toward the region
20 °C of low water saturation
Watson and Ertekin Steady state Core 3 @ 24 °C 24–150 Decrease Decrease
[54]
Bennion et al. [11] Steady state Sand core 7.8 @ 200 °C 50–200 More water wetness
Esfahania and Amott tests Dolomite Not reported 60–220 Oil-wet
Haghighi [18] limestone
Schembre et al. [42] Simulated annealing Diatomite core 640 @ 44 °C 120–180 Increase Increase
Bennion et al. [12] Unsteady state Sand core 8000–106 10–275 t<100 °C, Increase
increase
Sola et al. [43] Unsteady state, Limestone dolomite 16000 @ 37.8–93 More water wetness
numerical model 37.8 °C
10 @ 37.8 °C 37.8–260 Decrease Decrease
Hamouda et al. [20] Unsteady state Chalk core Not reported 23–130 t<80 °C, Increase
increase
Yang and Li [58] Unsteady state Sand core 100 @ 40 °C 40–120 Increase Increase
Zhang et al. [62] Unsteady state Core 403.7–889.5 25–100 Increase Increase
@ 56 °C
Wang et al. [52] Unsteady state Sand core 7.7 @ 40 °C 40–100 More water wetness
Akhlaghinia et al. [2,4] Unsteady state Berea core 2000 @ 21 °C 28–52 Increase 28<t<40, increase,
then
decrease
Li et al. [31] Unsteady state Natural limestone cores 0.8, 1.4, 86–100 Increase Increase
2.9 @ 25 °C

2. Methods transfer cylinder were injected using HBS-II positive displacement

2.1. Experimental setups
Two-phase displacement experimental setups were used to
measure the oil–water relative permeability by the unsteady state
method. Fig. 1 shows the schematic of the displacement apparatus
used for this study. The apparatus contained three sections: injec-
tion, core-holder, and production. Water and simulation oil in the
pumps, which have two parallel limbs to allow continuous injec-
tion. These pumps can inject liquids at a high accuracy of
0.01  20 cc/min at pressures up to 70 MPa. The core-holder, with
the capability of loading overburden pressure up to 70 MPa and
operating temperatures up to 260 °C, was built from stainless steel
and its heads were sealed with rubber O-rings. A HBD-2 confining
pressure pump operating pressure up to 100 MPa was used to sim-
ulate overburden pressure, which was always 3 MPa higher than
538 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548

the core pressure. A back pressure regulator was used to control
the core pressure and maintain the system in the two-phase mode
(oil–hot water). The core-holder and measurement tools were
placed in a thermostatic oven as shown by the dotted line in
Fig. 1. The temperature control system consisted of a temperature
controller with a temperature probe and two fans, which were
used to maintain a constant and homogeneous temperature within
the air bath inside the oven. The produced fluid was collected in
small diameter glass cylindrical vessels for the analysis and separa-
tion of oil and water, and weighing of the produced fluid with high
precision electronic balance was conducted to make a comparison
to minimize the measurement error. A HBX-V high efficiency oil-
cleaning instrument was used to clean cores with an operating
temperature from 40 °C to 120 °C and a working revs area from 0
to 1000 r/min. Pressure and temperature transducers and pump
calibrations, with accuracies of 0.05 MPa, 0.01 °C, and 0.01 cc,
respectively, were checked before each experiment.
2.2. Rock/fluid properties
2.2.1. Rock properties
Five cores from sandstone reservoirs were used. Their
dimensions are listed in Table 2. The porosity measured from both
weighting and gravity saturation ranged from 16.15 to 17.48%, and
the absolute permeability measured by both a soap-film air flow
meter and an air permeameter varied from 7.1060 to
179.9483 mD, which indicated reservoirs with strong
heterogeneity.
The clay minerals in reservoir rocks mainly include kaolinite,
illite, chlorite, and illite/smectite mixed layer clay. According to
the whole rock X-ray diffraction analysis, chlorite and kaolinite
were the major clay minerals in this block, and core samples Y-2
and Y-4 contained small amounts of illite/smectite mixed layer
clay. Table 3 lists the quantitative values.
Fig. 2 shows that the distribution curves of the pore throat
radius in different samples were analyzed comparatively by the
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique. The area under the
envelope curve stands for the total porosity of the core sample.
The core samples in block Y had similar porosities. However, sam-
ples Y-1, Y-2, and Y-3 had the highest proportion of small pore
throats, while samples Y-4 and Y-5 were predominated by large
pore throats. Fig. 3 is the distribution diagram of pore throats of
the core samples in block Y at a saturated state. A strong signal
of hydrogen atom in the warm-colored (red) area indicates the
preferential pore channel of the core samples.

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup used to measure oil–water relative permeability using the unsteady state technique. The numbers on the diagram
represent: 1. Transfer cylinder of gas; 2. Transfer cylinder of oil; 3. Transfer cylinder of water; 4. Nitrogen cylinder; 5. Syringe pump; 6. Pressure transducer; 7. Core holder; 8.
Back pressure regulator; 9. Electric pump; 10. Transverter; 11. Test tube; 12. Computer; 13. Fan.

Table 2
Properties of the cores used for relative permeability measurements.

Core Name Length (cm) Diameter (cm) Absolute permeability (mD) Porosity (%)
Y-1 5.140 2.550 7.1060 16.73
Y-2 5.060 2.544 20.6002 16.15
Y-3 4.820 2.540 48.8421 17.19
Y-4 4.580 2.544 123.2126 16.90
Y-5 5.126 2.452 179.9483 17.48

Table 3
Composition analysis of rock minerals using X-ray scattering techniques.

Rock Content of mineral component (%)

sample
C + kao It/mon Quartz K-Feldspar Anorthose Calcite Dolomite Ankerite Clay
Y-1 4.909 0.000 57.446 5.282 24.098 1.362 1.141 5.761 4.909
Y-2 3.771 0.532 65.350 17.517 6.538 2.084 0.099 4.110 4.303
Y-3 3.388 0.778 72.686 6.119 11.604 3.910 0.000 1.514 4.166
Y-4 2.979 0.000 68.020 8.590 20.100 0.000 0.000 1.311 2.979
Y-5 3.206 0.007 80.220 6.505 6.002 2.143 0.000 1.917 3.011
 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548 539

Fig. 2. Distribution of the pore throat radius using the NMR technique.

a) Coronal scan of Y-1 b) Coronal scan of Y-2 c) Coronal scan of Y-3

d) Coronal scan of Y-4 e) Coronal scan of Y-5

Fig. 3. Distribution of the pore throats of the five samples in block Y in a saturated state.

Table 4
Chemical components of the simulation oil.

Component Saturated Hydrocarbon Aromatics Pectin Asphaltene

Content wt/% 67.43 24.75 7.52 0.3

2.2.2. Fluid properties
Two-phase relative permeability measurements were con-
ducted for the oil–water systems and the components of the sim-
ulation oil are given in Table 4. The water phase for all experiments
was distilled water with a salinity of 2.1 wt.% KCl to prevent any
damage to the core. The viscosity of the original oil and the salinity
were 86.7 cP and 1 cP at 20 °C, respectively. It was filtered upon
receiving, and the viscosity was altered through the addition of
kerosene as a diluent. The final viscosity of the simulation oil
was 50 cP at 25 °C. Fig. 4 shows that the simulation oil and salinity
viscosity change with increasing temperature from 25 to 150 °C in
the experiments.
540 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548

Fig. 4. The viscosity-temperature curve of the simulation oil and salinity.

Fig. 5. Influences of temperature on the oil–water relative permeability of sample Y-3.

2.3. Experimental procedures
The cores were placed into the core-holder after they were
washed and dried, and nitrogen was pumped to measure absolute
permeability. The clean, dry cores were then weighed, vacuumed,
and saturated with brine to measure porosity and establish the ini-
tial condition of 100% brine saturation. In order to restore any wet-
tability alteration that may have occurred under different
experimental conditions, the cores were immersed in brine for
72 h. Next, they were placed into the core-holder and the desired
temperature was set with the temperature controller. Meanwhile,
the two transfer cylinders filled with simulation oil and brine were
allowed to settle down for 24 h. The irreducible water saturation
was calculated after each core was flushed with 15 pore volumes
of simulation oil at 0.1 mL/min, and the effective permeability of
the oil was measured three times with the relative error below
3% under these conditions. Similarly, the cores saturated with sim-
ulation oil were placed into the core-holder at the desired temper-
ature and pressure for 72 h to restore wettability. Finally, water
was injected at a constant rate and continued for at least 30 pore
volumes until oil production virtually ceased and the pressure drop
across the core became stable (the displacement velocity should
satisfy LuwVw > 1).
At the beginning of water breakthrough, we kept accurate and
dense records of the time interval, cumulative fluid production,
pressure difference, displacement velocity, and increase in the time
interval with the plummeting of oil production. The dead volumes
of all of the flow lines were measured and considered in data pro-
cessing to minimize the uncertainty in recovery ratio measure-
ments, which may affect saturation calculations. At the end of
each run, several pore volumes of hot toluene were injected to
wash the cores. Subsequently, gas permeability was measured
again to investigate the effect of the high temperature process on
oil–water relative permeability.
Though the capillary end effect did exist in the experiment, it
mainly affected the value of end points, such as the irreducible
water saturation and residual oil saturation. The relative perme-
ability curve is primarily to test the oil–water relative permeabil-
ity, so the effect was not taken into consideration. Additionally,
some measures were adopted in the experimental process, to keep
the capillary end effect minimal, such as placing a filter paper at
the end of the core-holder.
 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548
3. Results and discussion
In this section, three sets of experiments were carried out to
investigate the effect of temperature on relative permeability and
endpoint saturations. The sets were divided by similar rock physi-
cal properties. Capillary pressure was ignored since it was specu-
lated that it probably made little considerable difference in
investigating the effect of temperature on relative permeability.
Therefore, the displacements were viscous force dominate instead
of capillary pressure, dominate.
3.1. Effect of temperature on oil–water relative permeability for
individual core samples
A similar influence rule of incrementally increased temperature
on the relative permeability curve for the core samples in block Y is
evident. For example, in the case of oil relative permeability in core
sample Y-3 (shown in Fig. 5), the curves shifted rightwards with an
increase of temperature and the water saturation corresponding to
the same oil relative permeability showed a significant change
when the temperature ranged from 25 to 100 °C. In terms of the
effect of temperature on the water phase, the water phase relative
permeability at the residual oil saturation was almost doubled as
the temperature ranged from 25 to 50 °C, while the relative values
had no substantial change when the temperature further increased
from 50 to 75 °C. As the temperature rose to 100 °C continuously,
the water relative permeability at the residual oil saturation
approximate increased by 80%. The relative permeability variations
with temperature can be attributed to oil to water viscosity ratio
changes with temperature [8], because the viscosity of most types
of oil and bitumen decreases as temperature increases
[6,23,26,24,25]). This decrease in viscosity could lead to the
decrease of displacement pressure. As a result, the permeability
of water is enlarged and the water-phase flow ability is improved.
As temperatures rises, the interfacial tension of the oil–water two
phase reduces, meaning the capillary force and the water resis-
tance flow reduce, which enhances the seepage ability of water.
Besides, the activity of molecular movement increases with the
increase of temperatures, which reduces the thickness of the
boundary layer and enhances the flowing ability of water (Fig. 6).
With the increase of test temperature, the irreducible water sat-
uration gradually increased. The effect on the residual oil satura-
tion was the opposite. The crossover saturation, as a rule of
thumb, began to move to the right, which indicated that the hydro-
philic characteristics of the rock became stronger. A change of wet-
tability to more water-wet with the increase of temperature could
be one of the reasons for the rightwards shift of the curves. The
Fig. 6. Influences of temperature on the water–oil viscosity ratio.
541
Fig. 7. Interfacial tension at different temperatures and pressures.
water-flooding recovery of the core samples Y-1 to Y-5 ranged
from 50 to 54% calculated by the volume method based on the rel-
ative permeability curve at 25 °C. As the temperature rose to
100 °C, the oil recovery ratio could increase to 65–68%. The tem-
perature rise leads to the heat inflation of rock, which blocks slim
flow channels. This creates more invalid pores and enhances the
irreducible water saturation. Moreover, those polar materials
attaching on the rock surface were desorbed under high tempera-
tures, causing a large number of water molecules to occupy the
rock surfaces. This process enhanced both the wettability and the
irreducible water saturation.
Later, a test of interfacial tension under the same experimental
conditions of temperature and pressure was carried out. As shown
in Fig. 7, the findings reveal that the interface tension of the oil–
water two-phase displacement declined with the increase of tem-
perature and pressure. With the decrease of oil–water interfacial
tension, the two-phase region became wider, the water relative
permeability at the residual oil saturation increased, and the ulti-
mate oil recovery increased [27,63]. Furthermore, the intersection
of oil–water relative permeability curves moved to the right, and
residual oil saturation decreased [53].
3.2. Relationship of absolute permeability with oil–water relative
permeability at different temperatures
Given the fact that core samples Y-4 and Y-5 have similar
porosities, pore-throat distribution characteristics, and clay min-
eral compositions but different absolute permeability, it is possible
to compare the variation characteristics of the oil–water relative
permeability curves of the samples with different permeability
under the influence of temperature (Fig. 8). Both the oil and water
relative permeability of samples Y-4 and Y-5 went up as the tem-
perature rose from 25 to 100 °C. Fig. 9 indicates that the irreducible
water saturations of the core samples increased almost linearly
with an increase of temperature, while the residual oil saturation
decreased nonlinearly. The shift of the oil–water two-phase iso-
tonic point towards the right occurred, and the rock wettability
turned to be hydrophilic. The experimental result suggests that
the influence rule of temperature elevation on the oil–water rela-
tive permeability of sample Y-4 coincided basically with that of
Y-5. The effect of permeability variation on the relative permeabil-
ity curve was displayed mainly by the difference in endpoint value,
as the irreducible water saturation of the high permeability core
sample was relatively small at the same temperature.
542 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548

Fig. 8. The oil–water relative permeability of samples Y-3 and Y-5 under different temperatures.

3.3. Effect of clay minerals on oil–water relative permeability at

different temperatures

Samples Y-1 and Y-2 showed no significant difference in the

Fig. 9. The endpoint saturations of samples Y-4 and Y-5 under different
temperatures.
porosity and characteristics of pore throat distribution, except in
absolute permeability and clay mineral compositions. Compared
with Y-1, there was about 13% of illite/smectite mixed layer clay
in Y-2. Both illite and smectite are water sensitive minerals that
are likely to swell when interacting with water and thus increase
the irreducible water saturation. Since the variation characteristics
of the relative permeability curves of core samples with different
permeability have been discussed above, it is possible to study
the effects of clay mineral compositions on the relative permeabil-
ity curves under different temperature conditions comparatively
based on the differences in absolute permeability among various
core samples. As shown from Fig. 10, the temperature rise had
almost the same influence on the oil–water relative permeability
curve. The mix of illite/smectite had little impact on the endpoint
values at normal temperature. The difference in relative

Fig. 10. The oil–water relative permeability of samples Y-1 and Y-2 under different temperatures.
 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548 543

permeability curve between samples Y-1 and Y-2 at the same tem- water absorption at high temperature, and at the same time, the
perature was mainly the endpoint saturations. In other words, with irreducible water saturation of sample Y-2 was greater than that
the increase of core sample permeability (Y2 > Y1), the irreducible of sample Y-1 (see Fig. 11).
water saturation began to decrease, while the residual oil satura-
tion slightly increased. As the temperature rose to 75 °C and then
3.4. Effect of pore throat structure on oil–water relative permeability
100 °C, the irreducible water saturation of sample Y-2 was higher
at different temperatures
than that of Y-1, without exhibiting the characteristic of the irre-
ducible water saturation declining with the increase of absolute
With similar clay mineral compositions, samples Y-2 and Y-3
permeability. This suggests that the mix of illite/smectite has a sig-
still showed some discrepancy regarding pore throat distribution.
nificant impact on the relative permeability curves at high temper-
Therefore, we conducted a comparison study on the effect of pore
ature, mainly because that type of montmorillonite is sensitive to
throat structure on the relative permeability curves under different
temperature due to its water swellable behavior. Through several
temperatures (Fig. 12) based on the difference in absolute perme-
experiments, Yang and Li [58] found that temperature was the
ability between various core samples. The pore throat radius distri-
key factor affecting the expansion character of montmorillonite,
bution diagram and the pore throat radius distribution diagram at
and its water expansion would speed up with temperature eleva-
a saturated state obtained with the MRI-based technique showed
tion. They found the best expansion temperature is about 80 °C.
that, although sample Y-3 had a greater porosity than Y-2, the pro-
Compared with a low temperature condition, the water swelling
portion of small pore throats in the former was larger. The influ-
of montmorillonite reached the highest speed and the largest
ence rule of pore throat structure on the relative permeability

Fig. 11. The endpoint saturations of samples Y-1 and Y-2 under different temperatures.

Fig. 12. The oil–water relative permeability of samples Y-2 and Y-3 under different temperatures.
544 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548

Fig. 13. The endpoint saturations of samples Y-2 and Y-3 under different temperatures.

curve was less obvious at normal temperature, which is similar to

the influence rule of clay mineral composition on the relative per-
meability curves. The major difference in relative permeability
between samples Y-2 and Y-3 lay in the fact that the core with a
larger permeability had smaller irreducible water saturation. With
the temperature rises, tiny flow channels were blocked by the rock
matrix and particle expansion, leading to the step-by-step disinte-
gration of pore throats and thus causing an increase in the irre-
ducible water saturation. Fig. 13 shows that, with temperature
increase, the irreducible water saturations of samples Y-2 and
Y-3 increased linearly, while the residual oil saturations declined
nonlinearly. By contrast, the pore throat structure showed a signif-
icant influence on the relative permeability curves at high
temperature. This is because the proportion of the small pore
throats in Y-3 was large and some of them became small holes at
high temperature, resulting in a higher reducible water saturation
Fig. 14. Influences of temperature on irreducible water saturations.
than that of Y-2.
A similar influence rule of incrementally increased temperature
was evident in the relative permeability curves for low, medium,
and high permeability cores, overall. The results reveal that the
curves shifted rightwards and the oil and water relative permeabil-
ity corresponding to the same water saturation showed a signifi-
cant increase when the temperature ranged from 25 to 100 °C.
The irreducible water saturation increased linearly and the resid-
ual oil saturation decreased nonlinearly with increasing tempera-
tures. The main differences displayed in the relative permeability
curves between low, medium, and high permeability cores were
the change rule of the endpoint saturations being affected by tem-
perature, which can be seen from Figs. 14 and 15. With the
increase of the core sample absolute permeability (samples Y-1
to Y-5), the irreducible water saturation began to decrease gradu-
ally and the residual oil saturation slightly increased at normal
temperature. When it reached high temperatures, there was no
regular change of irreducible water saturation during the increases
of the core sample permeability, as the mix of illite/smectite and Fig. 15. Influences of temperature on residual oil saturations.

pore throat structure had a significant influence on the relative

permeability curve at high temperature.
4. Discussion
The results suggest that relative permeability of oil and water
are affected by temperature obviously. Usually, the relative perme-
ability is measured at an ambient temperature condition, with
simple experimental procedures and operations as well as shorter
time-consuming ones. In many cases, these data are directly used
in reservoir simulations for reservoir temperature, which cannot
reflect the actual characteristics of the seepage flow of a sandstone
reservoir ([37,12,43]. Although measurement under actual pres-
sure and temperature is considered a reliable and straightforward
method, it is inherently time consuming, complicated and
 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548 545

expensive. On the basis of the addressed disadvantages, empirical
correlations, as well as mathematical models, are proposed based
on abundant experimental data that relate water–oil residual sat-
urations and relative permeability to temperature [29,12]. Numer-
ical simulations are also performed to determine the relationship
between the relative permeability and temperature of porous
media by history matching of the experimental data [43]. In recent
years, the Monte Carlo technique has been widely applied to pre-
dict the relative permeability of unsaturated porous media. The
predicted results are shown to have a good agreement with the
experimental results. However, the current mathematical models
do not take the temperature effect into consideration [56,57]. In
conclusion, it is worthwhile to explore a simple practical method
that is feasible to transform these data measured at an ambient
temperature condition into properties under reservoir conditions.
In this paper, JBN functions [Eqs. (1)-(4)]and the power law or
Corey type of relative permeability functions [Eqs. (5)-(7)] are
used. We strove to establish empirical equations between Kro  T
and Krw  T based on the study of experimental data for oil–water
relative permeability under different temperatures.
dV oðtÞ
f o ðSw Þ ¼
dV ðtÞ
    
1 1
K ro ðSw Þ ¼ f o ðSw Þd d ð2Þ
V ðtÞ IV ðtÞ
lw f w ðSw Þ
K rw ðSw Þ ¼ K ro ðSw Þ  ð3Þ
lo f o ðSw Þ
Sw ¼ Swi þ V oðtÞ  f o ðSw ÞV ðtÞ
K rw ¼ K orw ðSm
wD Þ
K ro ¼ K oro ð1  SwD Þn
Sw  Swi
SwD ¼
1  Swi  Sor
The Corey type of relative permeability functions were utilized
to build equations between Kro and T. K oro was defined as the oil rel-
ative permeability at irreducible water saturation with a value of 1.
Firstly, we took advantage of the linear regression analysis of mea-
sured dates of relative permeability to determine the value of n
and the relationship [Eq. (8)] between n and t based on Eqs. (6)
and (7).
Through feed pump performance tests and the linear regression
analysis of test results, the regression equation was established.
Thus, we can predicate the fluid flow accurately and then build
equations [Eqs. (9) and (10)] of end-point saturations and T based
on the results above, which suggest that the irreducible water sat-
uration linearly increased with increasing temperature, while the
residual oil saturation decreased with increasing temperature.
The trend, however, is non-linear.
n ¼ a1  T þ a2 ð8Þ
Swi ¼ b1 T þ b2 ð9Þ
Sor ¼ c1 lnðTÞ þ c2 ð10Þ
ð1Þ Eq. (11), which stands for the relationship between Kro and T,
was calculated on account of Eqs. (6)-(10).
ða1 Tþa2 Þ
1  Sw  ðc1 lnðTÞ þ c2 Þ
K ro ¼ ð11Þ
1  ðb1 T þ b2 Þ  ðc1 lnðTÞ þ c2 Þ
Similarly, the linear regression method was utilized to deter-
mine the value of m and relationship [Eq. (12)] between m and T
based on Eqs. (5) and (7) by means of analyzing measured dates
of relative permeability. K orw was defined as the water relative per-
ð4Þ meability at residual oil saturation. Its value has a stronger depen-
dency on temperature mainly attributed to the temperature
ð5Þ elevation that lowered the viscosity of crude oil and changed the
water–oil viscosity ratio, leading to a greater water phase relative
ð6Þ permeability. Meanwhile, the curve-fitting method was introduced
to obtain the equation of uw/uo and T, as shown in Eq. (13). Here,
K orw50 was defined as the basic data measured at the ambient tem-
ð7Þ
perature condition of 50 °C. Then the relational expression
betweenK orwT and T was established, as shown in Eq. (14).

Fig. 16. Comparison of the relative permeability obtained from the JBN method and empirical formula method.
546 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548

Fig. 17. Comparison of relative permeability obtained from the experimental data and the empirical formula method.

Table 5
Comparison of the experimental data and fitting data of Yang et al. [60].

Experimental data Fitting data Relative error

Sw Kro Krw Kro1 Krw1 Kro Krw
0.2931 1 0 1 0 0 0
0.3565 0.8035 0.0105 0.8149 0.0074 0.0142 0.2972
0.4079 0.7018 0.0175 0.6728 0.0197 0.0413 0.1237
0.4532 0.5509 0.0281 0.5502 0.0346 0.0013 0.2310
0.5015 0.3965 0.0491 0.4286 0.0534 0.0811 0.0866
0.5287 0.3404 0.0667 0.3635 0.0653 0.0680 0.0198
0.5619 0.2702 0.0877 0.2852 0.0818 0.0555 0.0679
0.5952 0.1895 0.1123 0.2136 0.0991 0.1274 0.1178
0.6224 0.1258 0.1368 0.1589 0.1142 0.2629 0.1656
0.6495 0.0877 0.1544 0.1082 0.1301 0.2330 0.1570
0.6858 0.0491 0.1684 0.0486 0.1527 0.0096 0.0934
0.7100 0.0246 0.1789 0.0164 0.1685 0.3322 0.0583
0.7281 0 0.1930 0 0.1810 0 0.0621

m ¼ a3  T þ a4
lw 1 established empirical equation. Fig. 16 shows the comparison of
¼ ð13Þ
lo d1 þ d2  T þ d3 =T 1:5
 
K orwT ¼ K orw50  e1 þ e2  T þ e3 =T þ e4 =T 2
Eq. (15), which stands for the relation between Krw and T, was
calculated on account of Eqs. (5) and (12)-(14).
 
K rw ¼ K orw50  e1 þ e2  T þ e3 =T þ e4 =T 2
 
Sw  Swi
 a3 Tþa4
1  Swi  Sor
Specifically, for the cores used for the laboratory tests in this
paper, the values of these parameters in the empirical equation
established above are as follows: a1 = 0.0244, a2 = 3.8848,
a3 = 0.0001, a4 = 0.5099; b1 = 0.0025, b2 = 0.1941; c1 = 0.1121,
c2 = 0.6711; d1 = -10.754, d2 = 0.07689, d3 = 12635.71; e1 = 20.14,
e2 = 0.0530, e3 = -1638.84, and e4 = 40763.24. The values of
K orw50 for cores Y-2 and Y-3 are 0.077 and 0.0867, respectively.
ð12Þ Then these data of Y-2 and Y-3 measured at 50 °C can be converted
into data corresponding to real reservoir conditions based on the
the relative permeability obtained from the JBN method and the
empirical formula method. It was found that the empirical equa-
tion, which was adopted to fit the experiment data, resulted in a
ð14Þ
good effect.
Furthermore, the experimental data of some documents [60,52]
and block X as well as block Z were utilized to verify the applica-
bility and expansion of the proposed method to other sandstone
reservoirs. Fig. 17 shows the comparison of the relative permeabil-
ity of different sandstone reservoirs obtained from the experimen-
ð15Þ tal data and empirical formula method. Also, Tables 5 and 6 list
concrete data of the oil–water relative permeability of the experi-
mental method and the fitting method for Yang et al. [60] and
Wang et al. [52], respectively. The results of the comparison show
that the empirical equation adopted to fit the experiment data
results in a good effect, although in many cases, a little variance
in the data sets could be observed. The method presented in this
paper is not meant to replace specific lab measurements for a given
reservoir situation. Instead, it provides some reference for
 L.-h. Zhang et al. / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 105 (2017) 535–548 547

Table 6
Comparison of the experimental data and fitting data of Wang et al. [52].

Experimental data Fitting data Relative error

Sw Kro Krw Kro1 Krw1 Kro Krw
0.3608 1 0 1 0 0 0
0.4064 0.4389 0.0167 0.5761 0.0167 0.3125 0.0019
0.4534 0.2594 0.0305 0.2951 0.0375 0.1378 0.2289
0.5562 0.0721 0.0686 0.0544 0.0883 0.2447 0.2872
0.6221 0.0377 0.1004 0.0231 0.1232 0.3859 0.2268
0.6809 0 0.1674 0 0.1590 0 0.0500

laboratory tests at high temperature and can be used for prelimi-
nary evaluation purposes.
5. Conclusions
Based on the present study, the following conclusions can be
drawn regarding the effect of temperature on the oil–water rela-
tive permeability of sandstone cores.
(1) The shape of oil and water relative permeability curves for
sand rocks with different permeability significantly
increased with rising temperature. Also, the irreducible
water saturation linearly increased with elevating tempera-
ture, while the residual oil saturation nonlinearly decreased.
(2) The crossover saturation, as an indicator of wettability,
shifted to the right. This implied higher water-wettability.
The change of wettability to more water-wet with increasing
temperature could be one of the reasons for the rightwards
shift of the curves.
(3) With the increase of the core sample permeability, the irre-
ducible water saturation began to decrease and the residual
oil saturation slightly increased at the same temperature in
the condition of similar pore throat distribution characteris-
tics and clay mineral compositions.
(4) The effect of pore throat structure and the change of clay
mineral contents on the relative permeability curve were
less obvious at an ambient temperature condition. An oppo-
site tendency was observed at a high temperature condition,
as the smaller the pore-throat radius and the higher the con-
tent of clay mineral (especially illite/smectite mixed layer
clay), the easier the irreducible water saturation shifted to
the right dramatically.
(5) In this paper, a practical method was proposed to translate
lab results into reservoir values by combing the Johnson–B
ossler–Naumann technique with the empirical method. It
was found that the empirical equation adopted to fit the
experiment data resulted in a good effect. The conclusions
drawn in this paper provided valuable reference for labora-
tory tests under high temperatures, and they can be used
for preliminary evaluation purposes.
Acknowledgments
This project was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (Key Program) (Grant No. 51534006) and
the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51374181).
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