泡沫油是国内外常见的存在于重油油藏的流态，是一种在液气驱生产阶段的气油两相流，须有一个液相使其连续才能流动，并且包含分散气泡。国内外文献对泡沫油的形成、性质、渗流规律、流动特性等都有介绍，认识到泡沫油流动特性的重要性。泡沫驱作为一项重要的三次采油技术，在降低气油比、增加原油产量、提高波及效率等方面具有很大的发展潜力，对如何开发和管理这种油藏具有重要意义。针对泡沫油流的数值模拟研究所提出的多种数学模型的优缺点做了简要综述。

 Foamy oil is a common flow state of gas/oil two-phase fluid often occurring in many heavy-oil reservoirs during production under liquid/gas drive condition. Unlike normal two-phase fluid， foamy oil contains a number of dispersed gas bubbles and can flow only when a fluid phase makes it continuous. A large number of literatures abound with studies on the formation， properties， percolation feature and flowing characteristics of foamy oil and the importance of foamy oil flow characteristics has been recognized. Foam flooding， as tertiary oil recovery technique， has very great development potential in such issues as gas-oil ratio decrease， crude oil output increase， sweep efficiency improvement and has important significance for development and management of similar reservoirs. Briefly overviewed are advantages and disadvantages of various mathematical models in numerical simulation of foamy oil flow.