Flow Behavior of Polymer Viscoelastic Fluid in Complex Channel

A finite volume method for the numerical solution of viscoelastic flows is given. The flow of a differential Phan-Thien-Tanner (PTT) fluid through an abrupt expansion-contraction channel has been chosen as a prototype example. Through the results of numerical simulations, the contours of velocity and stream function are drawn. Numerical results show that the viscoelasticity of polymer solutions is the main factor influencing the sweep efficiency. With increasing elasticity, the flowing area in the channel is enlarged significantly, thus the area with immobile zones becomes smaller, the microcosmic sweep efficiency increases. The visco-elastic nature of the displacing polymer fluids can ingeneral improve the displacement efficiency in pores compared to using Newtonian fluids. This conclusion should be useful in selecting polymer fluids and designing polymer flooding operations.