Two-dimensional flow towards a guarded downhole sampling probe: An experimental study

The guarded-probe concept for downhole fluid sampling is analogous to that of focused electrodes for borehole electrical measurements. The guard part of the probe surrounds the sample probe and draws fluid from the near-wellbore region of the rock formation where pore fluid is contaminated with drilling fluid filtrate (invasion fluid). Fluid entering the central sample probe comes from points deeper in the formation, where contamination is lower. We report experiments performed to study the guard probe concept in two dimensions. For these experiments, glass beads contained in a thin cell formed the porous medium. The original, uncontaminated pore fluid was an optical index-matching oil. The invasion fluid was the same oil with a dissolved dye. A camera recorded the displacement of the dyed fluid by the clear fluid and the dye concentration was measured in the flow lines through which fluid was withdrawn. The experiments verify that in 2 dimensions a guarded probe produces clean samples of original pore fluid faster than would a simple probe. The experiments were successfully modeled, without adjustable parameters, by means of a finite-difference numerical reservoir simulator and by computations based on an approximate velocity field given by a complex variable solution of the Laplace equation.