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CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS 

VOL. 56, 2017 

A publication of 

The Italian Association 
of Chemical Engineering 
Online at www.aidic.it/cet 

Guest Editors: Jiří Jaromír Klemeš, Peng Yen Liew, Wai Shin Ho, Jeng Shiun Lim 
Copyright © 2017, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., 

ISBN 978-88-95608-47-1; ISSN 2283-9216 

Effect of Distance Intermittent Ultrasonic Wave Source on the 

Surfactant-Polymer Flooding Recovery and its Displacement 

Pattern 

Nor Asyikin Noruddin, Wan Rosli Wan Sulaiman*, Abdul Razak Ismail 

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Petroleum Engineering, Faculty of Petroleum and Renewable Energy Engineering, 81310 

UTM Skudai, Johor, Malaysia 

r-wan@petroleum.utm.my 

The ultimate recovery factor of primary and secondary recovery process can be up to approximately 40 % of oil 

in place. Technology development is required in order to improve and maximise the recovery and recover some 

of the oil left. Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) method been introduced to solve the main issues of poor recovery, 

and theoretically, Surfactant-Polymer (SP) flooding would be the EOR method that are able to maximise both, 

sweep and displacement efficiency. Application of ultrasonic waves and pulse vibrations in the reservoirs has 

been noticed to reduce the interfacial tension (IFT) between oil and water, resulting in reduction of capillary 

pressure in the pores and therefore, resulted to an improvement on oil recovery. Ultrasonic waves are 

longitudinal mechanical waves, which are generated by an infinitesimal compression of a medium. It is known 

that propagation of the sound waves depends on the elasticity, grain size and density of the rock. It is not certain 

how far an acoustic wave propagates into the reservoir, nor how such propagation occurs. The theory expects 

ultrasonic waves to be present in the reservoir because dispersion of low frequency waves within porous media 

forms high frequency harmonics (ultrasonic noise). The main focus of this research is to initiate the use of 

intermittent ultrasonic radiation in assisting SP flooding process under microscopic visualisation and how it 

enhances oil recovery through the reduction of residual oil saturation. This work has been designed to 

understand the mechanics of intermittent ultrasonic vibration in influencing additional recovery of SP flooding. 

This research is important to know more on how intermittent vibration influences the wave propagations inside 

the porous media. To achieve this, series of experiments consisting of visualisation and displacement 

experiments were conducted by using micro-model and macro-model, respectively. SP flooding with aid of 

ultrasonic waves was compared with normal SP flooding process. Distance of ultrasonic energy source from 

porous media, d, also was changed to monitor their influence on the process. Snapshots of oil displacement of 

glass micro-model were taken for visualisation purposes. Reduction of residual oil saturation for displacement 

process by using macro-model porous media were recorded. The outcomes justified that intermittent vibrations 

can produce and enhance more additional oil recovery of SP flooding compared to the continuous vibration, and 

the distance of ultrasonic energy source highly affects the residual oil left in the porous medium after SP flooding. 

1. Introduction

1.1 Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) 

The remaining oil in the reservoir after the primary and secondary methods is the potential target of the third 

production stage, namely the tertiary recovery method, or often termed as Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). The 

main goal of the EOR methods is one or more of the following (Zhu et al., 2005): (1) Reduction of the interfacial 

tension (IFT) between oil and water, and reduce capillary pressure; (2) Decrease of the mobility ratio between 

oil and water by increasing water viscosity; and (3) Injection of chemical solvents.  

This work will focus on surfactant-polymer (SP) chemical flooding as this slug accommodate both sweep and 

displacement efficiency. SP flooding can improve oil recovery by combining certain type of polymer and 

 

   

DOI: 10.3303/CET1756240

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 
 

Please cite this article as: Noruddin N.A., Sulaiman W.R.W., Ismail A.R., 2017, Effect of distance intermittent ultrasonic wave source on the 
surfactant-polymer flooding recovery and its displacement pattern, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 56, 1435-1440  
DOI:10.3303/CET1756240   

1435



surfactant. Polymer can increase the viscosity of fluid, so as to enhance the sweep efficiency, while surfactant 

can improve the displacement efficiency by reducing the IFT between oil and water.  

1.2 Ultrasound Waves 

Investigation on the effect of uses of continuous vibration wave been initiated after the earthquake incident in 

1950’s which generated elastic wave that increase the water and oil production. After this scenario, quite a 

number of field application and laboratory observation had been carried out to investigate the effect of vibration 

on oil recovery and to observe principally on those effects and it does bring positive outcomes. 

Duhon and Campbell (1965) initiated the investigation by carrying out an experiment on waterflood tests through 

cores under ultrasonic energy with three different frequencies set (1 MHz, 3.1 MHz, and 5.5 MHz). Results from 

these experiments showed that the ultrasonic energy improved the recovery of oil and displacement efficiency 

in cores. Ultrasonic excitation also resulted in the decreasing permeability of water to the ratio of oil. The 

permeability reduced greatly in the presence of ultrasound effect.  

Ultrasound waves will create vibrations in the reservoir, which would facilitate the production by changing the 

capillary forces, adhesion between rocks and fluids and cause oil coalescence (Hamida and Babadagli, 2005). 

General principles of ultrasonic/vibration application are wave travels through the porous media, and excites the 

fluids mechanically by delivering compressional waves into reservoirs. The vibration force introduced in the 

reservoir is thought to facilitate the movement of oil in one or more ways: by diminishing capillary forces, 

reducing adhesion between the rock and fluids and causing oil droplets to cluster into streams that flow with the 

waterflood. The vibration may lead to deformation of pore walls and also help removing fines, clays and 

asphaltenes from pores which will increase the permeability and porosity of rock. In the presence of surfactant, 

ultrasonic energy helps the emulsification of oil.  

Gadiev (1977) observed a considerable increase in oil production rate and cumulative oil production of 

unconsolidated sand packs under ultrasonic effect. “Sono-capillary effect” has been proposed as the 

phenomenon contributed to this increase in oil production. During cavitation, it is believed that the bubbles 

collapsed and the liquid level within a capillary is raised up.  

Simkin and Surguchev (1991) found that size of oil droplet increased when applying continuous ultrasound due 

to primary Bjerknes forces. Bjerknes forces can be attractive or repulsive depending on the droplet’s location 

relative to the wave field. The magnitude of the forces is depending on the density of continuous phase and 

radius of the droplet. The coalescence can help to accelerate the gravity phase separation within the porous 

media and improve the relative permeability of oil.   

Beresnev and Johnson (1994) indicated promising result in application of ultrasonic wave but the exact 

mechanism behind it is still poorly understood. This is because the problem is very complex, involving a 

superposition of several competing mechanisms. It is not certain how far an acoustic wave propagates into the 

reservoir, nor how such propagation occurs. The theory expects ultrasonic waves to be present in the reservoir 

because dispersion of low frequency waves within porous media forms high frequency harmonics (ultrasonic 

noise). Short wavelength of ultrasonic leads to a strong directional propagating ability. When propagating 

through liquid and solid, a small quantity of ultrasonic energy is absorbed and spoiled, therefore it has a strong 

penetrating capacity. The propagating characteristics of ultrasonic in medium, such as velocity, spoilage and 

absorption, are related to the media elastic modulus, density, temperature, component content, porosity and 

viscosity. 

Mohammadian et al. (2013) conducted an ultrasonic stimulated water-flooding experiment on unconsolidated 
sand pack. Kerosene, Vaseline and engine oil were used as the non-wet phase in the system. A 3 – 16 % 
increase in the recovery of water-flooding was observed. Emulsification and cavitation was identified as 
contributing mechanisms. These findings are expected to increase the insight into involving mechanisms which 
lead to improving the recovery of oil as a result of application of ultrasound waves (Mohammadian et al., 2013).
  
Later Hamida and Babadagli (2007) showed rheological properties of polymer maybe changed and the 

surfactant solubility maybe increased under ultrasonic energy. They also performed Hele-Shaw experiments. 

Ultrasonic improve the molecules diffusion at low injection rates during miscible displacement.  

Most of the field application and laboratory experiments involved continuous radiation and it proved the 

successful of enhanced oil recovery. On the other hand, the cost to generate consistence continuous radiation 

is rather expensive. In terms of machinery, a large amount of money need to spend in order to carried out the 

maintenance. In this study, a series of micro-model experiments were performed to see how intermittent and 

continuous radiation combination can affect the oil recovery. 

 

 

 

 

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2. Experimental Procedure 

2.1 Fluid Properties 

There were three types of fluids been used throughout the experiment, which are kerosene oil as a non-wetting 

phase, 20,000 ppm NaCl brine as an artificial formation brine, and surfactant-polymer slug as chemical slug 

agent to displace the remaining oil after water flooding. Alpha Olefin Sulphonate (AOS-surfactant) and 

Hydrolysed Polyacrylamide (HPAM-polymer) were used to formularise the chemical slug. The complete 

formulation of SP slug used was comprised of 0.15 wt% AOS + 400 ppm HPAM + 20,000 ppm NaCl, with the 

viscosity of 6.96 cp. On the other hand, viscosity for kerosene oil and 20,000 NaCl brine was 0.4 cp and 0.74 

cp, respectively. All of the viscosity measurements were done at 40 °C.  

2.2 Displacement Test 

Displacement test was conducted by using an artificial unconsolidated glass bead core as the porous medium. 

This artificial core was prescribed or termed as macro-model throughout this paper. This macro-model was 

made up from cylindrical hollow perspex with measurement of 3.4 cm of inner diameter, 42.5 cm of length, and 

0.6 cm of wall thickness. Four different ranges of glass beads size (which are 90 µm – 150 µm, 150 µm – 250 

µm, 250 µm – 425 µm, and 425 µm – 600 µm, following ratio of 2 : 1 : 1 : 1) were mixed and scattered to 

represent heterogeneity, and been filled in these Perspex holders. Formation inside this macro-model is 30 % 

porosity and 1 Darcy at its best due to belief that this artificial core is unconsolidated.  

Displacement test was designed to evaluate the recovery factor and percent of residual oil left in the artificial 

core after surfactant-polymer (SP) flooding process. The core was first introduced to water flood, and then 

ultrasonic wave was applied simultaneously with SP flooding. Decrement of residual oil left in the core after 

applying SP flooding was recorded as a reference value to be compared with SP flooding with aid of ultrasonic 

later. There were two types of waves been applied, which are continuous vibration (CUS) and intermittent 

vibration (IUS). 40 kHz frequency and 300 W of ultrasonic intensity been used to assist SP flooding process. 

Ultrasonic wave source was placed 30 cm from the core during the displacement process. Figure 1 shows the 

experimental set up of SP flooding without aids of ultrasonic vibration. Figure 2 shows the SP flooding with aids 

of ultrasonic vibration. 

2.3 Penetration Test 

Penetration test was designed to study how the distance of wave source to porous media affect the recovery in 

term of residual oil saturation, SOR after SP flooding. The setup of this penetration test would be the same as 

displacement test, which using the macro-model as well, but the distance of wave source, d, were changed and 

varied from 30 cm to 20 cm and 15 cm distance. Ultrasonic generator and transducer used to accommodate 

and transmit the wave throughout the medium.  

2.4 Visualisation Experiment 

Visualisation experiment was design in order to observe the displacement of oil during SP flooding process 

under the assistance of ultrasonic wave. Two-dimensional (2D) glass-etched micro-model was used as the 

porous medium. It is designed to study on the interface of oil and water under ultrasound wave. The specification 

of 2D glass micro-model was shown in Table 1. Experimental setup for visualization experiment can be referred 

as in Figure 2. Pictures were taken for every 15 min once the SP flooding and ultrasonic vibration were started. 

Table 2 indicates the summary of all experimental runs to complete the objective of this work. 

3. Results Analysis 

3.1 Surfactant-Polymer (SP) Flooding with and without Assistant of Ultrasound 

Displacement test was first conducted by running the surfactant-polymer flooding alone, without applying any 

vibration energy. This result was considered as benchmark and reference in comparing with the flooding under 

the assistance of ultrasonic vibration, later. This experiment was conducted to highlight on the improvements of 

reduction in residual oil saturation (SOR) in porous media, once vibration was applied. SOR recorded for the 

benchmark experiment, SP flooding without aid of ultrasonic vibration, was 48.7 %.  

As to emphasise the effect of ultrasonic vibration in assisting the SP flooding, continuous vibration (CUS) with 

25 kHz frequency, 300 W intensity, and 30 cm distance of porous medium from wave source, was applied. As 

can be referred in Figure 3(a), there was 7.7 % of SOR reduction recorded as the SP flooding and ultrasonic 

vibration stop. It showed that significant improvement on SOR after SP flooding had been achieved when applying 

vibration to assist the process. 

 

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(a) Set up of SP flooding without aid of ultrasonic 

vibration 

(b) Set up of SP flooding with aids of ultrasonic 

vibration 

 

 

(c) Set up of penetration experiment  

Figure 1: Type of set up of SP flooding 

Table 1: Specification of 2D glass micro-model 
Table 1: Specif ication of 2D glas s  micro-model 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table 2: Summary of experimental runs 

No.  Test  Wave 

Type 

F 

(kHz) 

I 

(W) 

d 

(cm) 

No.  Test  Wave 

Type 

F 

(kHz) 

I 

(W) 

d 

(cm) 

1 Displacement  - - - - 8 Visualisation  CUS 25 300 30 

2 Displacement  CUS 25 300 30 9 Visualisation  IUS 25 300 30 

3 Displacement  IUS  25 300 30 10 Visualisation  CUS 25 300 30 

4 Displacement  CUS 25 300 20 11 Visualisation  IUS 25 300 30 

5 Displacement  IUS  25 300 20 12 Visualisation  CUS 25 300 30 

6 Displacement  CUS 25 300 10 213 Visualisation  IUS 25 300 30 

7 Displacement  CUS 25 300 10       

3.2 SP Flooding Assisted by Intermittent (IUS) and Continuous (CUS) Ultrasound Radiation 

In order to compare the effectiveness of IUS with CUS in assisting SP flooding, another displacement test was 

carried out by using 25 kHz frequency, 150 W intensity of intermittent ultrasonic vibration, and 30 cm distance 

Parameter Specification  

Pore volume 37.688 mm3 

Dimension  60 mm × 60 mm 

Throat diameter 0.15 mm 

Porosity  34 % 

 Permeability  1.94 Darcy Figure 2: Set up of visualization experiment by 

using micro-model 

 

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of wave source from porous medium. Figure 3(b) shows there is a decrement of SOR value as by using IUS (38.0 

%) compared to CUS (41.0 %).  

 

Figure 3: Residual oil saturation, SOR after (a) SP flooding with and without assistance of ultrasonic wave, (b) 

exposing to intermittent (IUS) and continuous (CUS) ultrasonic waves 

The intermittent vibration gives more ample time for the droplets to coalescence compare to the continuous 

energy. Mechanism involved here is the coalescence of 2 or more oil droplets into the larger droplets having 

higher mobility then become part of the flow stream due to the Bjerknes forces (attractive forces acting between 

the vibrating droplets) by Bjerknes, V.F.K.. Interfacial tension had been reduced and will affect the capillary 

number. Capillary number will be increase and residual will be decreased. This mean more oil can be extracted 

from the pore. By applying suitable vibration and intensity, it can reduce the SOR and also saving the cost of 

production. 

3.3 Effect of Wave Distance to Porous Media on Residual Oil Saturation After SP Flooding 

Another displacement experiments (penetration test) were conducted by changing the distance of source of 

wave from the porous medium, d, to evaluate the performance of ultrasonic wave travel in long and shorter 

distance. Porous medium was placed at three different distance from the ultrasonic transducer (where the 

ultrasonic energy been transmitted from), which were 30 cm, 20 cm and 10 cm. Figure 4(a) and 4(b) shows the 

SOR after applying CUS and IUS, at respective distances. Both CUS and IUS exhibit the same trend, where the 

closer the source of wave located, the higher improvement in SOR recorded. Result in Figure 4(c) indicates that 

IUS exhibit significant reduction in SOR compared to CUS and SP flooding without non-vibration (NUS). Shorter 

distance will lead to less attenuation. Vibration and energy which travel for long distance will lose their energy 

through the medium. Energy loss not only happens in distance but also energy loss in molecules (in water) 

which continue to vibrate. These can be proved in the experiments that shorter distance of wave source from 

porous medium, and intermittent vibration as well, shows better improvement. 

 

Figure 4: Effect of (a) wave distance under continuous wave (CUS), (b) wave distance under intermittent wave 

(IUS), (c)10 cm wave distance on SOR 

3.4 Visualisation Experiment 

For the visualisation experiment, snapshots were taken during the process of SP flooding. Results in Figure 5(a) 

shows that intermittent ultrasonic (IUS) energy improved the recovery of oil and increase rate of oil displacement. 

IUS enhanced the movement of oil in porous media and hence, reduced the residual oil saturation, SOR. Results 

showed intermittent vibration can solve the entrapped residual oil problem during SP flooding process more 

effectively than continuous vibration. Figure 5(b) and Figure 5(c) shows the displacement of oil at the specific 

period of time, under CUS and IUS, respectively. For both energy, lesser oil left in porous media been observed 

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when the source of wave located closer (at d = 10 cm). It proves that energy less attenuate as the distance gets 

closer. 

4. Conclusions 

Results obtained from this study concluded that intermittent vibration managed to produce more oil and reduce 

residual oil left in porous media significantly compared to continuous vibration. Besides, intermittent energy also 

allowed significant reduction in residual oil saturation when the source of wave was placed closer to the micro-

model. It can be visualised that oil can be displaced efficiently when intermittent ultrasonic wave was applied. 

 
  

(a) (b) (c) 

Figure 5: Visualisation of (a) oil displacement pattern under continuous and intermittent vibration, (b) effect of 

wave distance under continuous vibration (CUS), (c) effect of wave distance under intermittent vibration (IUS) 

Acknowledgments  

This work was funded by the Grant No. 00K60 (with Grant Ref. No PY/2014/03342) and Grant No. 00M93 (with 

Grant Ref. No. of PY/2015/04612). 

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Gadiev S.M., 1977, Use of vibrations in oil production, Nedra Press, Moscow, Russia. 

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