Using sand tank experiments to model CO2 plume migration and trapping

Speaker: Hailun Ni, Ph. D., Research Assistant Professor, Gulf Coast Carbon Center, Jackson School of Geosciences, Bureau of Economic Geology, The University of Texas at Austin

Sand tank experiments can be used to model and de-risk geologic CO2 storage by helping us better understand how heterogeneities large and small affect CO2 plume migration and trapping. In this talk I will present two types of sand tank fluid flow experiments: one that acts as a shrunk analog model of the field scale, and one that models the effect of small-scale heterogeneities at the tank’s original meter scale. By conducting two-phase, buoyancy-driven fluid flow experiments in carefully constructed heterogeneous domains, we can investigate CO2 flow behavior through both a high-permeability fault and in different kinds of realistic ripple lamination bedforms. Surrogate fluid pairs and glass beads with varying properties were also used to study how these factors affect plume behavior. The significance of such sand tank experimental results is that they can be used to validate simulation results directly, and they can be incorporated as inputs into larger-scale simulation models to improve accuracy.