Abstract:

To study the gelation process of weak gel and apply weak gel for the industrial practice of tertiary oil recovery,three dimensional Monte Carlo simulations were carried out to obtain the growth of average molecular weights and gel growth images.  It is found that the initial polymer concentration is critical for the gel formation.  The dismutation process of sol-gel groups is clearly observed.  The relationship between the speed of gelation and the concentration of crosslink agent was also simulated.  The predicted dependency of the gel time upon the concentration of crosslink agent is in good agreement with the experimental data of viscosity versus time.  Also,the polymer concentration effects agree well with  viscosity data.  The simulation correctly predicts that the concentration effect on crosslink reaction will be weaker at the higher polymer concentration.

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