Foam injection is a promising solution for control of mobility in oil and gas field exploration and development, including enhanced oil recovery, matrix-acidization treatments, contaminated-aquifer remediation and gas leakage prevention. This study presents a numerical investigation of foam behavior in a porous medium. Fractional flow method is applied to describe steady-state foam displacement in the entrance region. In this model, foam flow for the cases of excluding and including capillary pressure and for two types of gas, nitrogen (N₂) and carbon dioxide (CO₂) are investigated. Effects of pertinent parameters are also verified. Results indicate that the foam texture strongly governs foam flow in porous media. Required entrance region may be quite different for foam texture to accede local equilibrium, depending on the case and physical properties that are used. According to the fact that the aim of foaming of injected gas is to reduce gas mobility, results show that CO₂ is a more proper injecting gas than N₂. There are also some ideas presented here on improvement in foam displacement process. This study will provide an insight into future laboratory research and development of full-field foam flow in a porous medium.

泡沫注入是控制油气田勘探和开发活动性的有前途的解决方案，包括提高采收率，基质酸化处理，含水层污染修复和防止气体泄漏。这项研究提出了多孔介质中泡沫行为的数值研究。分数流方法被用来描述稳态泡沫在入口区域的位移。在此模型中，排除和包括毛细压力以及两种气体（氮气（N ₂）和二氧化碳（CO ₂））的泡沫流动）进行调查。还验证了相关参数的影响。结果表明，泡沫质地强烈控制着多孔介质中的泡沫流动。要使泡沫质地达到局部平衡，所需的入口区域可能会大不相同，具体取决于使用的情况和物理特性。根据注入气体发泡的目的是降低气体流动性，结果表明，CO ₂比N ₂更适合注入气体。这里还提出了一些有关改善泡沫置换过程的想法。这项研究将为未来实验室研究和多孔介质中全视野泡沫流动的发展提供见识。