Post by Alireza Mohammadzadeh

One of the key challenges in carbonate matrix acidizing is determining the optimum injection rate. Moreover, the actual process for coring and testing in laboratory has accuracy, reproducibility as well as time and cost issues. Inject too slowly, and the acid is spent near the wellbore. Inject too quickly, and the acid bypasses large portions of the rock. Between these extremes lies an optimum condition where dominant wormholes form, maximizing stimulation efficiency. A common way to identify this optimum is through the relationship between Pore Volumes to Breakthrough (PVBT) and injection rate. As part of my Master's thesis, "Pore-Scale Modelling of Carbonate Matrix Acidizing Using the Lattice Boltzmann Method", I developed a pore-scale reactive transport solver capable of simulating wormhole formation in carbonate rocks across a wide range of injection rates. The work leveraged the Lattice Boltzmann Method due to its ability to: • Handle complex pore geometries • Couple flow, transport, reaction, and dissolution processes • Scale efficiently through parallel computing One of the main challenges was maintaining numerical stability while accurately capturing the different dissolution regimes and wormhole morphologies. The developed model successfully reproduced the expected dissolution patterns and generated PVBT–injection rate trends that are in qualitative agreement with previous studies. In addition, several quantitative metrics were introduced to identify dominant wormhole formation and evaluate dissolution behavior across different porous media. Once again, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Rohaldin Miri for his invaluable guidance and support throughout this research. The animation below shows the development of a wormhole at an injection velocity of 5 × 10⁻⁴ m/s. I look forward to extending this work toward larger-scale simulations and high-performance GPU implementations. #LatticeBoltzmannMethod #LBM #ReactiveTransport #MatrixAcidizing #ReservoirEngineering #CarbonateReservoirs #CFD #PorousMedia #PetroleumEngineering

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