USE OF FOAM IN PETROLEUM OPERATIONS

Abstract
A number of applications of aqueous foam to
petroleum production operations have been developed
in recent years. The successful use of foaming agents
to remove water in air/gas drilling is well known. In a
number of situations the use of foam as a drilling and
sand cleanout fluid with high apparent viscosity and
low density has been successful. In these and other
applications, foam behaves like a non-Newtonian
fluid with a high but controllable apparent viscosity.
The resulting low mobility and improved sweep
efficiency in porous media has led to its application as
a displacing medium in secondary recovery. Since foam
decreases gas permeability considerably, it has been
used in several situations as a means of impeding or
blocking gas flow.
In order to understand and control the behavior of
foam, we have studied its flow properties both in
tubes and in porous media. These properties depend
on foam quality (ratio of gas volume to total volume),
foam texture (bubble size and bubble size distribution),
foaming agent (and its concentration) and the foam
stabilizer. They also depend on the shear rate as well as
the permeability and liquid saturation of the porous
medium.

We are all familiar with foam as it occurs in everyday life and hardly a day goes by without our encountering it in one form or another. A few years ago
it was said we were becoming surrounded by things
made of plastic and now one wonders if this is not
becoming true of foam of various types. From our
everyday experience we know that foams are materials
with unusual physical properties: some are quite
mobile, others viscous or even stiff and still others are
solids. These physical properties have led to the use of
foam in a number of ways in petroleum production

Rsum
De nombreuses applications de la mousse aqueuse
dans des oprations de production de ptrole ont t
mises au point ces dernires annes. La russite dans
lutilisation dagents moussants pour liminer leau
dans les forages a lair ou au gaz est bien connue.
Dans de nombreuses situations, lutilisation de la
mousse comme fluide de forage et fluide liminant le
sable par sa haute viscosit apprente et sa faible
densit, a t couronnee de succs. Dans ces autres
applications, la mousse se comporte comme un fluide
non-Newtonien, avec une haute, mais contrlable
viscosite apparente. La faible mobilit qui en rsulte,
et lexcellente efficacit de balayage en milieu poreux
ont abouti a son application comme agent de dplacement en rcuperation secondaire. Puisque la mousse
diminue la permabilit au gaz de faon considrable,
elle a t utilise, dans plusieurs cas, comme moyen
dobstruction ou darrt dun coulement gazeux.
Pour comprendre et contrier le comporizment de la
mousse, nous avons tudi ses propriets dcoulement
en tubes et en milieu poreux. Ces propriets dpendent
de lespce de mousse (rapport du volume gazeux au
volume total), de la texture de la mousse (taille des
bulles et distribution de la taille des bulles), de lagent
producteur de mousse (et de sa concentration), et de
lagent stabilisateur de la mousse. Elles dpendent
aussi (du gradient de vitesse), ainsi que de la permabilit et saturation en fluide du milieu poreux.

operations. It is the purpose of this paper both to

review the present status of foam application in these
situations as well as to present experimental results
which contribute to our knowledge of these applications.
Perhaps the best place to start is to define foam and
describe its important physical properties. Foam is a
dispersion of a gas in a solution such that the liquid
is the continuow phase and the gas the discontinuous
phase. Although most foams contain more gas than
liquid (on a volumetric but not gravimetric basis), the
ratio of the two phases can vary over quite a range. I n
a wet foam the bubbles can assume a spherical
by S . S . MARSDEN, Jr., J. J. P. EERLIGH, R. A. shape whereas in a dry foam they are polyhedrons
ALBRECHT and A. DAVID, Stanford University. having essentially flat faces which, at equilibrium, must
meet to form angles of 120. In between these two
Stanford, California, U.S.A.
235

236

Special Aspects of Production

extremes, geometrical figures having both curved and

essentially flat faces can exist.
Since pure liquids will not foam, the liquid phase
must be a solution. Thus we have in the simplest case a
system with two phases and three components; the gas,
the solvent and the solute. The latter is frequently a
type of surface active substance known commercially
as a foamer. Molecules of the foamer concentrate
at the interfaces and thus decrease the surface tension
and enhance the formation of the foam. In many cases
of practical importance more than one solute is often
present and occasionally a solid phase is also present
either dispersed in the liquid phase or existing at the
gas-liquid interface. While we can work with simple
three-component foams in the laboratory, we must be
careful in extrapolating these results to practical
cases.
Foams are thermodynamically unstable systems
because they always contain more than a minimal
amount of gas-solution interface. This interface represents surface free energy, the amount of which can be
estimated from a knowledge of the surface tension of
the solution and the interfacial area of the foam.
Whenever a foam membrane breaks and the liquid
coalesces, there is a decrease in the surface free energy.
Thus the decomposition of foam into its constituent
phases is a spontaneous process. Since the solution
phase is always much denser than the gaseous phase,
there is a strong tendency for the former to separate or
drain from the main body of foam unless it is circulated
or agitated in some way. This drainage leads to an
instability or a variation in physical properties with
height and with time which precedes breakage. A
third factor which leads to instability is the pressure
which exists across any curved fluid interface (a
capillary pressure) and which results in solution
being forced out of the cusp-shaped regions between
bubbles.
Even though they are basically unstable, many
foams can and do exist relatively unchanged for long
periods of time. There are several things which contribute to this stability. One is the presence of so-called
foam stabilizers which may lead to the formation of
a semi-solid layer at the gas-solution interface.
Another is the usual decrease of surface tension of
surfactant solutions with time which, of course, leads
to a decrease of surface free energy of the system. A
third is the ionic repulsion of the solute molecules at
the two surfaces of a foam membrane which prevents
the expulsion of the last of the solution from the
membrane and thus its collapse. Still another is a
Marongoni effect such that a sudden increase of surface area in a part of the membrane will lead to a
sudden increase in the surface tension of that part of
the membra-ie and thus prevent rupture.

Since foam stability depends on a number of competing factors, it has been measured by a number of
investigators.. However, almost without exception
they have studied quiescent foams in bulk. Although
their results have contributed to our knowledge of
foam, they are not generally applicable to foams in
petroleum production operations since here we are
dealing with flowing foams and/or foams in porous
media.

FOAM PROPERTIES
Quality
In all work with foam it soon becomes apparent
that the relative amount of the two phases is a critical
factor. This has been described mathematically in
several ways and these have been reviewed recently3.
We prefer to describe this property as foam quality, ,
which is equal to the ratio of the gas volume, Ve,to the
total volume, Vi.In some of our work4 the quality
ranged from 0.70 for wet foams to 0.95 for dry foams.
Since the closest packing of spheres of equal size would
correspond to a quality of 0.74, the bubbles in these
wet foams were spherical in shape whereas those in the
dry foam were undoubtedly polyhedrons. In the more
usual case of bubbles of non-uniform size, the
critical concentration for transition from bubbles to
polyhedrons is higher because of smaller bubbles
displacing liquid from the regions between larger
ones.
The range of qualities that can be obtained probably
depends on the type and concentration of foameraswell
as the foam generator. Since others have described
results with foams of quality greater than 0.95 obtained with more concentrated solutions of foamers
than those used in the work mectioned above, one can
infer that there is a positive relationship between the
two factors. Because molecules of the foamer are
needed to form a stable air-solution interface, this is
not unreasonable. Quality of a quiescent foam will
increase with time because of liquid drainage but that
of a flowing foam can essentially be constant with
time. The quality of foam increases with decreasing
pressure3; because of the relationship between these
variables, the change can be quite significant for wet
foams but only of minor importance for very dry
ones.
Quality of bulk foam can be measured gravimetrically by weighing a fixed volume of foam3. Since only
the solution is a conductor, it can also be determined
easily through an electricalconductivitymeasurement2,6
but this is a secondary method which must be calibrated.

Special Aspects of Production

Texture
Of equal importance to the quality is the foam
texture, i.e. the bubble size and bubble size distribution. This can be described in terms of an average
bubble radius or diameter as well as a distribution of
radii7. Surface area is directly related to bubble radius
and so texture has sometimes been described in terms
of specific surface. The ratio between the average
bubble diameter and the diameter of the container or
flow channel for the foam is of particular importance;
if this is small, some foams may be considered to
behave as fluids but if it is large, then the interaction of
bubbles and a solid surface will invalidate this approach.
Texture also depends on the type and concentration
of foamer and foam stabilizer as well as on the foam
generator. An increase in concentration will generally
lead to a decrease in bubble size since more of the
foamer molecules are available for the gas-solution
interface. Since the coalescence of two bubbles of a wet
foam or the rupture of the membrane between two
bubbles of a dry foam will lead to the formation of a
larger bubble, the texture of a mass of foam generally
becomes coarser with time. This is not true of foam
flowing through a porous medium where regeneration
takes place. Because of gas expansion the texture of
bulk foam becomes coarser as pressure is decreased.
Texture can be determined by measuring flattened
foam bubbles in thin cells under the microscope. Thin
sections of frozen or otherwise solidified foam have
been studied in the same wayg. These methods are
rather tedious and so other optical methods have been
devised by several investigators0.. They are generally based on the principle that a finer textured foam
has more gas-solution interfaces per unit volume than
a coarser one and therefore it will scatter a collimated
beam of light to a higher degree. Thus the amount of
light transmitted and not scattered by foam in an
optical cell decreases as the texture becomes finer.
These are secondary methods of determining texture
and they must be calibrated in terms of a microscopic
measurement.

Rheology
The foams that we are familiar with in everyday life
present a variety of physical appearance. Some flow
readily like ordinary liquids, others flow only very
slowly and still others are stiff and elastic. This
behavior has led a number of investigators to consider
foams as fluids or as macroscopically uniform bodies
and then to study their rheology. When the bubble
size is small relative to the instrument dimensions, this

237

is probably a valid approach but even when this condition does not hold, results of some engineering value
can often be obtained. Although we might expect
Newtonian behavior for very wet foams, all results to
date suggest that foams behave like non-Newtonian
fluids. Thus true viscosity cannot be measured for
foams but shear stresses can be measured at a number
of shear rates and apparent viscosities calculated.
These have been found to decrease with increasing
shear rate and with decreasing foam quality3*3.
While the effect of texture variation has not been
reported, comparable work on the apparent viscosity
of small glass spheres suspended in liquids suggests
that particle or bubble size has little effect but that size
distribution has a significant effect14.
In rheological terminology we can say that some
foams behave like pseudoplastic fluids4 while others
behave like a Bingham plastic. The reasons for the
difference are not known.
On a microscopic level we know that some foams
flow through porous media as a mass of very fine
bubbles much smaller than the pores but that others
flow as a series of foam membranes of changing
sizes, shapes and configurations16. In neither case can
we really assign an apparent viscosity to the foam; the
best we can do is calculate from Darcys law a foam
mobility, i.e., the ratio of effective permeability to
apparent viscosity3. This mobility increases with
decreasing foam quality and with increasing liquid
saturation in the porous medium.

APPLICATIONS OF FOAM IN
PETROLEUM ENGINEERING
In order to understand the use of foam in petroleum
production operations, we must know something about
the conditions under which foam is generated or not
generated. Energy must be supplied to the system to
create the interfaces as well as to lift the solution from
the lowest elevation. In the laboratory this can easily
be done by passing the gas through a porous disk and
into the solution where it emerges as a mass of
bubble^'^.^'. If the pores of the disk are uniform in
size, the foam will initially be quite uniform in texture.
When foaming solution is put into a mixer or blender,
foams quite heterogeneous in texture can be preparedlg. If a foam is desired at some elevated pressure
so it can be studied in a flow system, it is best to mix
both components in a graded porous medium and
allow the foam produced to flow directly into the flow
system4. Having a soluble gas dissolved in the foamer
solution at an elevated pressure and then decreasing
the pressure to well below the bubble-point will also
produce a very fine foam.

Special Aspects of Production

238

Thorough mixing of the gas, liquid and solute is very

important; without this only a foamy condition in parts
of the flow system or at best a foam of variable properties is attained. Although this is sometimes desired,
better control and more meaningful results are generally
achieved with a uniform foam. Erratic behavior of
field tests can often be traced to variable distribution of
the foamer in the solution. The presence of salts will
decrease the effectiveness of many foamers and the
encountering of crude oil will have an adverse effect on
most aqueous foams.

Use in air/gas drilling

penetrating the reservoir rock significantly and thus

minimize formation damage.
In this application the foam is generated at the
surface of the ground, circulated through the drill
string for one pass and then discharged into a sump.
Although carbon dioxide and inert gases were used
in early tests because of the fear of fire, air as well as
nitrogen are now used because it is believed that the
nature of the foam itself removes the fire hazard. The
aqueous phase is a solution of about 3-lbJbbl. of
foaming agent plus 1-lb./bbl of a thickening agent.
Both liquid and gaseous phases are mixed in a foam
generator made up of a porous medium. The quality
of the foam is controlled by the relative gas-liquid rates
as well as the concentration of the foamer. At the
typical well-head injection pressures of 250 psi, a very
dry foam of about r = 0.99 is produced by the generator. Normally one would expect an increase in quality
with decrease in pressure to atmospheric but there is
actually a slight decrease in quality to something like
0.97 because of liquids being picked up from the formations surrounding the well-bore. The solids
brought up by the foam, while covering a wide range
of sizes, actually are about a third of the volume of the
liquid in the foam but still only a very small fraction of
the foam volume. By observation of the foam quality
and appearance at the blooie line as well as pressure
drop and drill string torque, adjustments can be made
to keep drilling with foam under control at ail times.

The spectacular success of airlgas drilling in some

areas is as well known as its failure under certain
drilling situations. One of the most difficult of these to
combat was the intrusion of formation waters into
the hole; this led to higher pressure requirements for
the air/gas, caking of cuttings on the hole wall or bit
and lower drilling ratzs. Several methods of sealing
the water-bearing sands were tried with various
degrees of success. But the most successful method by
far has been to remove this water as a foam formed
with the air/gas. The third necessary ingredient, the
foamer, is usually pumped into the air/gas stream at a
relatively small but constant<rate. Itis unlikely that
much foam develops in the drill string but rather that
it forms in the turbulent region at the bit jets and under
the cutters. The nature of the foam varies with the rate
Use in removing liquids from gas wells
of water intrusion but it is generally a light froth
having a very low density and sufficient effective
Brine and liquid hydrocarbons tend to accumulate
viscosity for removing the cuttings. The methods of
in
some natural gas wells when the pressure is insuffiapplication as well as the success achieved have been
adequately described in the literature and so will not cient to lift them to the surface of the ground. They
impede and can completely block the flow of the gas.
be reviewed herezo*21.
The same problem is sometimes encountered in wells
in gas storage reservoirs. Mechanical methods have
generally been used to remove these liquids and these
Use as drilling fluid
are usually the best in cases of high liquid flow rates.
But with low liquid flow rates and with economically
The use of foam as a drilling fluid was developed to marginal wells the removal of the liquid as a foam
meet a special set of conditions under which other has been very successful. The foamer is introduced
drilling fluids had failed5. These conditions exist with into the water and the gas entering from the formation
the poorly consolidated, high permeability, low pres- generates foam in the well-bore. Since the initial weight
sure oil sands in parts of California. Ordinary mud of the foam column corresponds approximately to
drilling resulted in lost returns and serious formation the weight of the liquid in the foam, gas production
damage. Air/gas drilling led to much hole erosion is not improved by reduction of back pressure until
because of the high annular velocities required for the some foam is swept from the hole. The foam simply
low velocity gas (- 3000 ft./min.). The high effective serves as a means of preventing the gas from by-passing
viscosity of the foam allows cuttings up to 2 inches in the liquid because of the viscous nature of the foam.
diameter to be removed with annular velocities of only It also lifts sand, loose scale and other solids which
250 ft./min. The relatively low bottom hole pressures of may have accumulated in the wells. The testing and
about 50 psi in 3000 ft. wells keep the foam from selection of foamers as well as the fluid application and

Special Aspects of Production

239

results of field tests have been thoroughly described in drive this slug by continued injection of air. The foam
the literat~re~*~*~.
slug moves through the reservoir as a bank or zone
which is preceded by an oil zone that gradually builds
up. Both the oil recovery and the gas-oil ratios are
Use in decreasing or blocking gas flow
improved considerably over those obtained by conconventional displacement methods, particularly for
When conducting laboratory experiments with foam high viscosity oils. These improvements are a direct
in porous media, one soon becomes impressed with its consequence of the pronounced decrease in k,, along
ability to impede and block gas flow. We have obtained with only a minor decrease in k,. Another interpretacomplete blockage of gas flow in coarse beach sand tion of the results is to attribute these improvements to
when the pressure differential was almost 50 psi/ft. of the high viscosity of the foam bank.
sand. Others have noted that gas permeability is
decreased considerably in the presenceoffoamers and
that aqueous permeability is only slightly affected26.
RECENT EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
This behavior suggests the use of foam in several
situations where gas permeability decrease is desirable.
The mobility of foam in porous media has been
In some gas storage reservoirs leakage through shown to decrease with increasing quality and with
faults, improperly abandoned wells or other breaks in decreasing liquid saturation within a porous medium3.
the cap-rock is often serious. The use of foam in Limited results indicate that mobility also decreases
blocking such leakage is now under study here under with increasing foamer concentration. In the same
an American Gas Association Fellowship. The appli- study an unsuccessful attempt was made to relate
cation of foam to improve the vertical permeability mobility and foam texture12. This work has now been
profile of a heterogeneous reservoir by decreasing the extended to include a more thorough study of the
effective permeability of loose streaks has been des- relationship between these variables as well as the
cribed. The use of foam for plugging gas producing change in foam quality and texture as it flows through
strata and thus improving the gas/oil ratio has also several porous media in series.
been proposed2*. A patent describes the use of a
surfactant in an in situ combustion process and foam
Apparatus and procedure
undoubtedly makes a strong contribution here. No
published reports of field tests of these several applicaThe apparatus used is shown schematically in Fig.
tions have yet appeared.
1. The foam generator has been described previously4;
in these experiments it was packed with sand which
ranged from 20/30 mesh at the inlet to 80 mesh at the
Use of foam as a displacing medium
outlet. The foam produced could be directed either
through
the series of four identical porous media
Although it is difficult to say where research on this
application of foam was initiated, it is probable that alternating with five blank, optical cells or else
Fried with the first to conduct successful experiments through a thin cell under a microscope. The porous
along this line. Bond and Holbrook received a media consisted of 20/30 mesh Ottawa sand having a
patent29 on this application prior to publication of porosity of 35% and a permeability of 5.2 darcies.
Frieds work but it is still a moot question as to who Pressure drops across each were measured with a small
were the inventors of the process. Craig and Lummus displacement transducer (Pace Engineering KP-15).
also received a patent on a foam drive process at a
later date. Although there are indications that field
tests have been made, no publications describing these
tests have yet appeared in the literature.
Frieds report covered a wide range of aspects of
O PRESCURE TRANSDUCER
foam and anticipated a good deal of the work done
R THIN CELL
later on by others. He demonstrated that foam can be
made to flow through porous media and that foam can
ro
*BURETTE
be an effective displacement medium for brine and/or
oil in porous media, The procedure which he desLBLINK
OR
PORWS
DELECTROES
OPTICAL CELLS
MEDIA
cribed and tested in the laboratory was to generate
an aqueous foam external to the porous medium,
Fig. I-Schematic diagram of apparatus
inject a slug of it into the porous medium and then

240

Special Aspects of Production

Liquid saturations were determined through electrical

conductivity measurements which were calibrated
gravimetrically by means of another identical porous
medium. Texture of the foam in the blank cells could
or else by withdrawing a small amount of the foam
and measuring the average bubble size in the thin cell
under the microscope. Flow rate was determined by
measuring the time to fill a 50 ml. burette and quality

index plotted versus the log of the liquid saturation.

Typical results are shown in Fig. 2. There is a slight
effect of concentration of foamer, which was unexpected, but this did point out the necessity of
30

n25-

<

0.010%

0.20%

o I .o

010

30

made at a room temperature of 2O-25"C.

Fig. 3-Foam mobility, 1, Darcy/cP, versus foam

quality, ,for Triton X-IO0foams

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The foam quality at the elevated pressure in each

porous medium was calculated from that at atmosThe electrical resistivity data were divided by the pheric pressure by use of an equation presented
resistivity of the porous medium fully saturated with earlier3. Although the results were sometimes erratic
foamer solution and then the log of this resistivity because of instrumental difficulties, the general trends
are shown in Fig. 3. This same decrease in foam
mobility with increase in quality and with decrease in
40.0, .
i
0.6 *

0 0.010%

O AEROSOL Ma

A 0.1096

0.5

10.0.

x
w

0.0-

a4-

E
v>

A O K LIQUID
O PETROWET R
V ARMOMIST N0.I

TRITON X-100

5.0.

38-

a-

1
t-

2.0-

w 0.2
m
m

-I

W
I
I
:

UA
10

3.0-

I .o

0.3

20

30

50

00

0.1

100

0*0T60 165 I70

175

' 0 0 I05

190

195 I

Fig. 2-Resistivity index, I, versus liquidsaturation, Sw, Fig. 4-Bubble diameter, mm., versus foam quality,
percent, for aerosol M A solutions
for 10 solutions of all foamers

r,

241

Special Aspects of Production

foamer concentration has been reported earlier for

one of the foamers3.
With an increase in quality, there is an increase in
bubble size as measured in the thin cell (Fig. 4). While
there are definite differences between the foamers, the
general trend is the same for all five studied here.
Typical results from the optical densitometer, in
which the intensity of the light transmitted is measured
indirectly in millivolts, are presented in Fig. 5. These
show that there is a decrease in the number of light
scattering interfaces per unit volume with an increase
in quality and this, of course, corresponds to an increase in bubble size with an increase in quality.
Previously we had assumed that an increase in quality
was due to an increase in the number of bubbles of
the same size but this is evidently not true for these
systems.

tion determines the mobility. A similar relationship

has been found for the other foamers although the
curves are displaced slightly from that shown in Fig.
6.
We do not have a value of the average pore diameter
for this sand but can estimate one from the average
grain diameter (0.7 mm.) by use of the rule-of-thumb
that the grain diameter is about five times that of the
pore diameter. This value of pore diameter (0.14 mm.)
corresponds approximately with the point on the
curve of Fig. 6 where the mobility decreases less
rapidly with the bubble size. Thus the mobility is
20
n

O- 0.01Oo/ TRITON X-100

:15-

0 - 0.2070
A

I-.

-J

- 1.0 */o
A

20

a
a

mO

5z

LL

0.1

\*

A
'o1

04
0.5
BUBBLE DIAMETER, MM

0.2

0.3

C 6

Fig. 6-Foam mobility, A, darcy/cP versus bubble

diameter, mm., for Triton X-100 foams

\A U A

5-

O.

%
O

I
10

X-100

15

c_

>-

I-

L-

10

- 0.20 % TRITON

0 -1.0 Yo TRITON X-100

.60 .65 .70

.75

.80 .85

FOAM QUALITY,

II

.90 .95 1.0

Fig. 5-Intensity of light transmitted by foam, mv.,

versus foam quality, ,for Petrowet R.

low for foams with larger bubbtes but increases

rapidly once the bubbles reach the average pore
size. It is strange that the mobility should increase
below this critical size rather than remain constant.
However, this may be due to the effective viscosity
of the foam decreasing rapidly to that of the solution
when the bubbles can move through the pores without
distortion.
In summary then, we can see that texture has a very
pronounced effect on the mobility of foam in porous
media. In order to decrease this mobility, as is desired
in several of the applications of foam in petroleum
operations, we must increase the foam quality which,
in the systems studied here, also increases the bubble
size. This can be accomplished by decreasing the
foamer concentration or by increasing the gas/solution
ratio. The effect of both pressure and pressure change
will have a strong effect on bubble size and so this
must also be considered.

These results agree qualitatively with those obtained

by Khan" and by Stenuf' but not with those obtained
by Clark and Blackman". This suggests a different
relationship between these variables for different
foams.
An increase in bubble size with a decrease in
foamer concentration is also indicated by the results in
Fig. 5. With a smaller number of foamer molecules
available, one would expect to have fewer interfaces
and thus larger bubbles. In all cases the change of
texture with quality is very slight below = 0.80 but
much more pronounced above this value.
A typical plot of mobility vs. bubble size is shown
in Fig. 6. Since values for all three concentrations of Acknowledgements
We wish to express our appreciation to the Petrofoamers approximate the same line, it appears that
bubble size rather than quality or foamer concentra- leum Research Fund of the American Chem-ical

Special Aspects of Production

242

Society for financial support of a major portion of this 14. ROBINSON, J. V.,J. Phys. undCoIl. Chem., 1951,55,455464.
work.
15. BLACKMAN. S.. Trans.Farad. Soc.. 1948.44.204-206.
16. SHARMA, S.; Report for Masters-Degre h Petroleum
Engineering, Stanford Univ., 1965.
References
17. FRIED, A. N., USBM Report of Investigations 5866,1964.

1. ROSS, S., J. Phys. Chem.. 1943,47, 266-277.

2. MILES, G . D., SHELDOVSKY, L., and ROSS, J., J. Phys.
Chem., 1945, 49, 93-107.
3. MARSDEN, S. S., and KHAN, S. A., Trans. AIME, 1966,
237, 17-25.
4. RAZA, S. H., and MARSDEN, S. S., presented at AIME
meeting in Denver, Colo., Oct. 1965.
5. ANDERSON. G . W.. HARRISON. T. F.. and HUTCHISON, S. F., present& at API meting in Los Angeles,
Calif., May 1966.
6. CLARK, N. O., Trans. Farad. Soc., 1946,44,13-15.
7. CLARK. N. O.. and BLACKMAN.. M.,. Trans. Farad. Soc..
1946,44;1-7. .
8. STENUF, T.J., 1953, Dissertation in Chemical Engineering,
Syracuse Univ., N.Y.
9. CHANGE, R. C., SCHOEN, H. M., and GROVE, C. S.,
Ind. Eng. Chem., 1956,48,2035-2039.
10. CLARK, N. O., and BLACKMAN, M., Trans. Farad. Soc.,
1946,44,7-13.
11. VERMEULEN, T., WILLIAMS, G. M., and LANGLOIS,
G . E., Chem. Eng. Prog., 1955, 51, 85F-94F.
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ABSTRACTO

han llevado a su aplicacin como medio desplazador

en la recuperacin secundaria. Puesto que la espuma
disminuye considerablemente la permeabilidad del
gas, se ha usado en diversas situaciones como medio de
impedir o bloquear el flujo de gas.
Con el fin de entender y controlar el comportamiento de la espuma, hemos estudiado sus propiedades
de flujo tanto en tubos como en medios porosos.
Estas propiedades dependen de la calidad de la espuma
(relacion del volumen de gas a volumen total), la
textura de la espuma (tamao de la burbuja y distribucin del tamano de la burbuja), agente espumante (y
su concentracin).y el establizador de la espuma.
Tambin dependen del coeficiente de corte al igual
que de la permeabilidad y la saturacin de lquido del
medio poroso.

Utilizacion de espuma en operaciones petroleras

En aos recientes se han desarrollado una variedad
de aplicacionesde la espuma acuosa a las operacionesde
produccin de petrleo. Es muy conocida la utilizacin de agentes espumantes para eliminar con xito el
agua en la perforacin de aire/gas. En un nmero de
situaciones el uso de la espuma como fluido de perforacin y de limpieza de arena, con gran viscosidad
aparente y baja densidad, ha resultado un xito. En
estas y otras aplicaciones la espuma se comporta como
un fluido no Newtoniano con una viscosidad aparente
alta pero controlable. La baja movilidad y la eficiencia
de barrido mejorada en medios porosos resultantes,