The understanding of the mechanisms behind foam generation and the structure of foam itself form the basis of foam-related experiments for its application in Enhanced Oil Recovery and overcoming gas injection limitations. Novel insights in this paper towards the theory of foam generation can help explain experimental results and lead to improved formulas of the applied substances and concentrations. This study aims to investigate the mechanisms behind foam generation and the structure of foam by specific laboratory experiments and theoretical analyses. The liquid drainage through interconnected Plateau borders was found to be the most critical foam decay mechanism for this particular research. The justification of the foam drainage equation was demonstrated by comparing the numerical solution with the outcome of a few bulk experiments. The discrepancies were described according to the limitations of both the theory and the experimental settings. Foam modelling gives more profound knowledge in more detail of the different stages in foam drainage than experimental data can deliver, which is because of the lack of continuous measurement of foam conductivity for the foam bulk test. Therefore, a comprehension of foam modelling investigation and comparison is required to gain a deeper understanding of foam behaviour.@en

One of the main reasons for foam flooding enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is mobilizing oil left in the reservoir after primary recovery (depletion by pressure difference solely) and water flooding. However, expanding the infrastructure for certain foam EOR projects might be necessary as more wells are required, or a different well pattern is necessary. This study aims to study the effect of Newtonian and non-Newtonian viscosifying agents to assist foam flooding under the porous medium condition and to compare the results. Furthermore, this paper attempts to investigate the use of glycerol as a novel promising economic and ecological candidate instead of polymers. The shear rate inside the core was calculated based on the literature, which was combined with viscometric measurements in order to form four pairs of equal apparent viscosity. The differences and overlap within the core flooding experiments with foam generated by Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluids were observed by examining the mobility reduction factor under transient and steady-state conditions and by calculating the gas fraction present in the core. It was concluded that glycerol in core flood experiments could reach the same mobility reduction factor of about 1600 as polymer solutions with the same apparent viscosity, as long as the viscosity of the injected solution is reasonably low. Moreover, glycerol even reached the maximum mobility reduction factor faster than the foam generated by the polymer solution.

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