Abstract
In situ combustion (ISC) is one of the improve recovery methods with a high potential to increase the recovery of heavy crude oil. Although we mentioned this major advantage, this process has not being used in Colombia yet. This fact due mainly to the complexity of the involved phenomenon, therefore a field project must be design after extended laboratory investigation.
Experimental tests in combustion tubes made through the main conditions in the oilfield have being the process' evaluation tool with the highest acceptance. These tests show the speed and stability of the combustion front and the obtained results from the production's analysis of fluids, mainly the ones of the exhaust gases. It is possible to calculate the basic combustion parameters by using: combustible consumption, required air, air- combustible relation, hydrogen- carbon atomic, and oxygen use. The parameters mentioned before let, trough different scaling analytic methods to evaluate the technical and economic viability of the process in the field.
In this work was developed a computational tool that allow calculating the design parameters through different scaling analytic methods Nelson & McNeil, Gates & Ramey y Moore et al). Comparing the results got from the different described methods, when scaling two tests in a combustion tube, they show similar numbers. Taking into account that Nelson and McNeil's method is the most useful one due to the oilfield characteristic, it was made a sensitivity of operational parameters and the result permitted to study the relation between the oilfield operational variables
