Laboratory Investigations of Steam Pressure-Transient Behavior in Porous Materials

Abstract

Transient flow of noncondensable gas in porous materials has been thoroughly investigated, and good agreement between the gas-flow equation and experiments has been reported in the petroleum- engineering literature (Wallick and Aronofsky, 1954). This theory has been widely used in computer simulations of pressure- transient behavior in vapor-dominated geothermal steam reservoirs (e.g., Moench and Herkelrath, 1978).

However, few laboratory experiments involving steam flow in porous materials have been reported. gas-flow theory to steam flow, we developed a laboratory system to investigate the transient flow of steam through unconsolidated porous materials. a step change in gas pressure at one end of a cylinder of porous material, and measuring the pressure as a function of time at the other end.