Experimental study of rheophysical characteristics of hydrocarbon flow in

microchannels
PhD candidate Aida Aslanova
Baku Higher Oil School, Petroleum Engineering Department
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7362-615X
aida.soltanova@bhos.edu.az, +994515662320
Prof. Fuad Veliyev
Baku Higher Oil School, Petroleum Engineering Department
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/ 0009-0003-3015-318X
fuadveliev@hotmail.com

Microhydrodynamics, which studies the movement of liquids in thin and ultrathin channels, is
one of the relatively new scientific and technical areas of interest in various fields, including
chemistry, biology, medicine, as well as oil production.
Currently, the development and operation of low-permeable hydrocarbon reservoirs is
becoming an increasingly urgent task, and therefore, the study of the laws of fluid movement in
subcapillary pores and microcracks is an urgent scientific and technical problem. Many research
works have been conducted to study the rheophysical properties of the fluid flow in
microchannels theoretically and experimentally. Different assumptions and ideas have been
stated to clarify the reason of the rheophysical phenomena of the fluid behaviour in
microchannels.
In recent years, extensive researches have been conducted to study the features of the filtration
process with the manifestation of the initial pressure gradient. It has been practically established
that fluid filtration within the reservoirs does not always occur according to Darcy’s law. The
manifestation of nonlinear effects due to the rheological properties of the filtered liquid in porous
media has been examined experimentally. It was also established that starting from a certain
critical size of the opening of the crack, the flow of a Newtonian fluid (water, viscous oil)
becomes non-Newtonian, with the manifestation of an initial pressure gradient and flow locking.
In this research work, Rheophysical anomalies in the properties of hydrocarbon flow through the
thin channels are examined within the series of laboratory experiments. The violation of the
Newtonian behavior and Darcy's law during hydrocarbon flow is revealed which is a
consequence of the hydraulic resistance loaded into the system. This is characterized by
electrokinetic potential of the fluid by reducing of which the non-Newtonian nature of the flow
can be significantly weaken. Magnetic field is applied to the entrance of the model to adjust the
electrokinetic potential of the fluid at various micro-slit openings and flow curves are generated.
Bingham model is used to evaluate the rheological parameters of hydrocarbon flow in the
absence and presence of a magnetic field. Duration of the influence of a magnetic field is
experimentally investigated as well.