ESTIMATION OF PRIMARY DRAINAGE THREE-PHASE RELATIVE PERMEABILITY FOR ORGANIC LIQUID TRANSPORT IN THR VADOSE ZONE

The results of eight common models are compared to predict the drainage relative permeability to oil in a three-phase system (water –oil –air). The goodness of the models does not increase with the amount of data or computation that the models require. In addition, the calculations showed how different interpretations of the models and of the terminology associated with them can significantly affect the predictions. Thus, considerable error may be introduced into the simulations of organic liquid transport in the vadose zone depending on the selection and interpretation of the three-phase relative permeability model.