Machine Learning Approach to Predict the Flow Rate for an Immiscible Two-Phase Flow at Pore Scale for Enhanced Oil Recovery Application

Due to global demand for energy, there is a need to maximize oil extraction from wet reservoir sedimentary formations, which implies the efficient extraction of oil at the pore scale. The approach involves pressurizing water into the wetting oil pore of the rock for displacing and extracting the oil. The two-phase flow is complicated because of the behavior of the fluid flow at the pore scale, and capillary quantities such as surface tension, viscosities, pressure drop, radius of the medium, and contact angle become important. In the present work, we use machine learning algorithms in TensorFlow to predict the volumetric flow rate for a given pressure drop, surface tension, viscosity and geometry of the pores. The TensorFlow software library was developed by the Google Brain team and is one of the most powerful tools for developing machine learning workflows. Machine learning models can be trained on data and then these models are used to make predictions. In this paper, the predicted values for a two-phase flow of various pore sizes and liquids are validated against the numerical and experimental results in the literature.