Exact Solutions for Nonlinear High Retention-Concentration Fines Migration

The paper discusses migration of natural reservoir fines lifted by high-rate or low-salinity water injection. The previous papers used linear analytical model, which is valid for low retention of mobilised fine particles in order to determine the model parameters from breakthrough fines concentration and pressure drop across the core during laboratory corefloods. The current work derives exact analytical solutions for the nonlinear case of high retention-concentration fines migration. The solution exhibits uniform profiles of suspended and retained concentrations ahead of the particle front and steady-state retained concentration behind the front. The obtained type curves allow distinguishing between linear and nonlinear fines migration. The laboratory data exhibit close agreement with the nonlinear model predictions, whereas the linear model poorly matches the laboratory data.