Stabilized Finite Element Methods For Coupled Geomechanics and Multiphase Flow

STABILIZED FINITE ELEMENT METHODS FOR
COUPLED GEOMECHANICS AND MULTIPHASE FLOW

a dissertation
submitted to the department of petroleum engineering
and the committee on graduate studies
of stanford university
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
doctor of philosophy
Jing Wan
November 2002
c Copyright by Jing Wan 2003
All Rights Reserved
ii
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in
my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a
dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Khalid Aziz
(Principal Advisor)
Thomas J.R. Hughes
(Mechanical Engineering)
(Co-Advisor)
Louis J. Durlofsky
Approved for the University Committee on Graduate
Studies:
iii
iv
Abstract
Geomechanical models are needed to account for rock deformation resulting from
ow-induced pressure changes in stress sensitive reservoirs. A number of recent stud-
ies with coupled models have demonstrated the practical importance of integrated
geomechanics and reservoir uid ow simulations. There are, however, several nu-
merical issues that must be resolved before these coupled models can be used reliably.
In addition, the stability, convergence and accuracy for these coupled procedures have
not been considered in detail.
In the 1980s, the phenomenon of intensied spatial oscillations of the pore pres-
sure in consolidation problems was examined. It was later shown that the causes of
this problem are the so-called saddle point mechanism in the coupled equations as
well as a violation of the Babu ska-Brezzi condition. This condition stipulates that
only certain combinations of nite element base functions can be used for pressure
and displacement in standard Galerkin techniques. A new numerical scheme using
a discontinuous Galerkin method in time and a stabilized nite element method in
space was developed to circumvent the diculties observed with standard approaches.
Numerical calculations clearly show that the stabilized method can improve stability
while maintaining consistency.
There are several types of coupled methods in the literature, mainly iteratively
coupled and fully coupled methods. We developed a fully coupled method by using
the Galerkin Finite Element Method for the force balance equations and the nite
dierence methods for the mass balance equations. This method was validated and
will serve as a benchmark for other coupled methods. However, this fully coupled
v
method is also subject to the Babu ska-Brezzi condition. To solve large scale reservoir
problems, a new framework is proposed which combines a stabilized nite element
method to solve the force balance and pressure equations and a control-volume nite
dierence method to solve the remaining component mass balance equations. All of
the equations are solved in a fully coupled fashion. This framework is applicable for
a number of dierent nite element techniques appropriate for geomechanics, while
still tightly coupling the geomechanics with a control-volume nite-dierence reservoir
ow model. In this way, we are able to prevent pressure oscillation and numerical
instability. This method is also compared with existing fully coupled and iteratively
coupled methods. The comparisons demonstrate consistent results on homogeneous
reservoirs with compressible uids, and improved stability by the stabilized methods
on reservoirs with very low permeability barriers.
vi
Acknowledgments
This thesis is a result of four years of work. Many people have helped me not to get
lost along the curvy road.
My deepest appreciation goes to my advisor, Prof. Khalid Aziz. I have been in
his program since 1996 when I started my M.Sc. assignment. During these years, his
enthusiasm and broad view on research has had a great impact on me. Ive learned
a lot from him, both in the disciplines of research and about the attitude for life. He
provided me great deal of freedom to explore dierent ideas, and at the same time
gave me constructive suggestions and guidance. It was a distinct privilege for me to
work with Prof. Aziz.
I took Prof. Tom Hughess nite element classes in my second year. After that I
could not leave out the thoughts that I have to incorporate nite elements into my
work. Prof. Hughess sharp mind and hands-on help made me begin to understand
the mathematics behind the numerical schemes. Prof. Hughes has also become a
good source for advice on all aspects of my work.
Prof. Lou Durlofskys encouragement and suggestions provided the push I needed
to complete this work. I also would like to thank his tremendous help in the prelimi-
nary versions of this thesis. My sincere thanks are also due to other members of my
PhD committee, Prof. Margot Gerritsen and Prof. Amos Nur, who monitored my
work and provided me valuables comments.
I would like to thank Dr. L. K. Thomas from Phillips Petroleum Co. (now Con-
nocoPhillips) who kept an eye on the progress of my work and was always available
when I needed his advice. My appreciation also goes to Dr. Terry Stone from Schlum-
berger Geoquest who provided me with Eclipse (2003a) results for comparison with
vii
my calculations and brought new perspectives into this work. I also would like to
thank Prof. Tony Settari for fruitful discussions over the stability issues.
Needless to say, I am grateful to all of my colleagues at Stanford. I am espe-
cially thankful to Yan Pan, Josephina Schembre and Yuguang Chen for being my
ocemates, and for sharing my joys and frustrations. Thanks also go to Mohammad
Karimi-Fard for many discussions.
I take this opportunity to thank my parents, Bin Wan and Wenhui Yang, for their
love and support. They were the ones who rst planted the idea of a Ph.D. in my
mind. I am especially thankful to my husband Pengbo Lu who has been a colleague
for ten years and is a constant source of help and great ideas. He is always closest to
my joys and sorrows and always standing byme.
This research has been supported by SUPRI-B and SUPRI-HW industrial aliates
programs and the Petroleum Engineering Department at Stanford University.
viii
Contents
Abstract v
Acknowledgments vii
1 Introduction 1
1.1 Problem Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Some Hydrocarbon Withdrawal Field Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2.1 Wilmington Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.2 Valhall Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.3 Ekosk Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2.4 South Belridge Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2.5 Summary of Dierent Field Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
1.3 Coupling Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.1 Theory of Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3.2 Multiphase Flow Coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4 Numerical Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5 Stabilized Finite Element Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1.6 Framework for Coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.7 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.8 Outline of the Thesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2 Mathematical Models 17
2.1 Coupled Geomechanics and Multiphase Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.1.1 Mass Balance Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
ix
2.1.2 Linear Momentum Balance Equation of Fluid Phase . . . . . . 22
2.1.3 Force Balance Equation of Solid Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
2.1.4 Denition of Solid Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.1.5 Solid Phase Constitutive Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
2.1.6 Summary of the Initial Boundary Value Problem . . . . . . . 26
2.2 Theory of Consolidation for Single Phase Fluid . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.1 Summary of Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
2.2.2 One-Dimensional Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.3 Equations for W/O/S System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.3.1 Pressure Equation - Parabolic Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
2.3.2 Saturation Equation - Hyperbolic Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
3 Saddle Point Problem and Numerical Stability 39
3.1 Description of Saddle-Point Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
3.2 The Saddle Point Problem in Consolidation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3 Consolidation with Slightly Compressible Fluid . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3.1 Revisit Terzaghis Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
3.3.2 Reason for Instability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
3.4 Large Scale Reservoir Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4 Finite Element Formulation 49
4.1 Notations in Functional Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.1 Inner Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.2 Bilinear Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.1.3 Hilbert Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2 Stabilized Finite Element Method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.3 Fully-Discrete Space-Time Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.4 Stabilized Pressure-Displacement Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.5 Stabilized Pressure-Velocity-Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.5.1 Stabilized Pressure-Velocity Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
4.5.2 Stabilized Pressure-Velocity-Displacement Formulation . . . . 66
4.5.3 Local Conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
x
4.6 Stabilized Pressure-Displacement Formulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5 Numerical Experiments of Consolidation 69
5.1 Pressure-Displacement Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1.1 Bilinear Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.1.2 Quadratic Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.1.3 Three-Dimensional Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.2 Pressure-Velocity-Displacement Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.2.1 Pressure-Velocity Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.2.2 Pressure-Velocity-Displacement Form . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
6 Coupled Geomechanics and Multiphase Flow 85
6.1 Dierent Levels of Coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
6.1.1 Fully Coupled Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
6.1.2 Non-Fully Coupled Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
6.2 A New Framework of Coupling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7 Numerical Experiments of Coupled Models 93
7.1 Validation Using Rock Compressibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
7.1.1 Case I: Primary Depletion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
7.1.2 Case II: A Quarter of A Five-Spot Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . 99
7.2 Validation Using Eclipse (2003a) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
7.3 Comparisons between FCM, FEAST and ICM . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
7.3.1 Case I: Primary Depletion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
7.3.2 Case II: A Quarter of A Five Spot Pattern . . . . . . . . . . . 109
7.4 Evaluation of Coupling Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
7.5 Improved Stability by Stabilized Coupled Model . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
7.6 Discussion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.6.1 Local and global mass conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.6.2 Primary Depletion Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
7.6.3 Waterooding Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
7.6.4 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
xi
8 Conclusions and Recommendations 125
8.1 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
8.2 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Nomenclature 129
Bibliography 133
A Improving Stress Calculations 145
A.1 Averaging Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
A.1.1 Step 1: Naive Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
A.1.2 Step 2: Non-corner Boundary Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
A.1.3 Step 3: External Corner Nodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
A.2 Boundary Propagating Technique . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
B Well Model of FEAST 149
C Software Design 153
C.1 Top-Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C.2 Mid-Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
C.2.1 Mesh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
C.2.2 Shape Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
C.3 Libraries and Solvers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
C.4 File and Class Descriptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
C.4.1 Reservoir Simulator with Modication for Geomechanical Cou-
pling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
C.4.2 nite element development of ICM, FCM, and FEAST . . . . 158
xii
List of Tables
7.1 Reservoir properties for type I assumption model . . . . . . . . . . . 96
xiii
xiv
List of Figures
2.1 Description of Terzaghis problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2 Analytical solution of Terzaghis problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.1 Saddle shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
3.2 Parabolic shape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
3.3 Pressure oscillations in Terzaghis problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.1 Discontinuous Galerkin in Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
5.1 Bilinear elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.2 Comparison of stabilized and non-stabilized pressure proles at early
time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.3 Comparison of stabilized and non-stabilized pressure proles at later
time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.4 Oscillating stress for averaging stress approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.5 Pressure prole using modied stabilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.6 Quadratic elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.7 Comparison of stabilized and non-stabilized pressure proles at early
time using quadratic elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.8 Good consistency for stabilized method by using quadratic elements . 75
5.9 Three-dimensional example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
5.10 Pressure eld for three-dimensional case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
5.11 Pressure prole by continuous bilinear elements . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5.12 Velocity by continuous bilinear elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
xv
5.13 Quadratic velocity discontinuous pressure elements . . . . . . . . . . 79
5.14 Velocity prole for homogeneous media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
5.15 Layer system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.16 Velocity prole for layer system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
5.17 Pressure prole by pressure-velocity-displacement formulation . . . . 83
6.1 Flow chart for the fully coupled approach with stabilized nite element
and nite dierence methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
6.2 Flow chart for the iteratively coupled approach with stabilized nite
element and nite dierence methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
7.1 BHP result for type I assumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
7.2 Stress in the x- and y- directions for primary depletion case . . . . . 98
7.3 Shear stress and displacement for primary depletion case . . . . . . . 98
7.4 Bottomhole pressure for type II assumption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7.5 Relative permeability curve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
7.6 Stress distribution for a quater of a ve-spot case . . . . . . . . . . . 101
7.7 Comparison of producer BHP for a quarter of a ve-spot case . . . . 102
7.8 Comparison of injector BHP for a quarter of a ve-spot case . . . . . 102
7.9 Water saturation map by FCM and c
I
r
model at t = 1700 days . . . . 103
7.10 Description of an Eclipse case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
7.11 Flow rate history of the producer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.12 Stress in the x-direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
7.13 Stress in the z-direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.14 Shear stress in the x-y plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
7.15 Displacement in the x-direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.16 Displacement in the z-direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
7.17 Comparison of FCM, FEAST and ICM for primary depletion case . . 108
7.18 Comparison between FEAST, FCM and ICM for waterooding case . 109
7.19 Water saturation map by FCM and FEAST model at t = 1600 days . 110
7.20 Heterogeneous eld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
7.21 The eects of coupling terms on the producer BHP . . . . . . . . . . 112
xvi
7.22 Stress in the x-direction and shear stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
7.23 Reservoir model with two shale layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
7.24 Oscillations in pressure using FCM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
7.25 Stabilized pressure obtained using FEAST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
7.26 Local mass balance error of power of 10 STB/Day for primary depletion
case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
7.27 Global mass balance error for primary depletion case . . . . . . . . . 119
7.28 Local mass balance errors (10
STB/Day) for waterooding case . . . 120

7.29 Global mass balance error for waterooding case . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
7.30 CVFE grid from Verma (1996) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
A.1 Example node description of averaging technique . . . . . . . . . . . 146
A.2 Example node description of boundary propagating technique . . . . 148
B.1 Description of r
w
, r
0
and r
node
in a well block . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
B.2 Pressure distribution around the well . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
C.1 Structure of Top-Level Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
C.2 Gridding Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
C.3 Shape Function Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
xvii
xviii
Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Problem Statement
Geomechanics plays a very important role in several areas of the oil industry. In par-
ticular, geomechanics is crucial in such problems as production-induced compaction
and subsidence, borehole stability, and hydraulic fracturing. In these areas, in addi-
tion to uid ow, another key mechanism is the rock deformation due to changing in
situ stress.
In general, uid production from a hydrocarbon reservoir decreases uid pres-
sure and increases the eective overburden load on porous reservoir rocks. Reservoir
rocks are considered to be stress-sensitive if their uid-ow characteristics change
substantially with changes in eective stresses. Therefore large rock deformations
are observed for rocks with weak mechanical properties in stress-sensitive reservoirs.
Rock deformations can aect permeability, porosity and pore compressibility, causing
changes in reservoir productivity. Consequently, it becomes necessary in some cases
to couple geomechanics and uid ow models.
Before the strong coupling between geomechanics and multiphase ow was rec-
ognized, numerical modeling of such processes was carried out in three independent
areas: (1) compaction and subsidence modeling, focusing on constitutive modeling
and stress/strain behaviors; (2) reservoir simulation, looking at models of multicom-
ponent, multiphase ow and heat transfer in porous media; (3) fracture mechanics,
1
2 CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
dealing with crack propagation and geometry. Only the rst two of the three cate-
gories are within the scope of this study: compaction and subsidence modeling, and
reservoir simulation. In conventional reservoir simulation, geomechanics and multi-
phase ow are uncoupled, with a rock compressibility factor to partially account for
the rock pore volume changes. The stress state of the reservoir is ignored in standard
reservoir simulators.
Several investigations (Settari & Price 1984, Chen & Teufel 1997, Chin et al. 1998)
have shown that uncoupled models may give inaccurate predictions. For this reason,
recent studies have shifted focus onto coupled modeling (e.g., Settari & Price 1984,
Alejano-Monge et al. 1995, Chen & Teufel 1997, Osorio et al. 1997, Koutsabeloulis et
al. 1997, Chin et al. 1998, Gutierrez & Lewis 1998).
Even in light of these investigations, there are still many open issues to be ad-
dressed in coupled uid ow and geomechanical modeling. The study here will focus
on the mathematical structure of compaction and subsidence problems, and the de-
velopment of accurate and stable numerical techniques. In this chapter, we will briey
describe some eld cases in which subsidence has occurred due to hydrocarbon pro-
duction, to demonstrate the potentially signicant coupling eects between the solid
and uid phases. Then we will introduce the generalized coupled model and its
importance, which leads to some important coupling issues to be addressed in this
study.
1.2 Some Hydrocarbon Withdrawal Field Cases
Water, oil and natural gas are all uids that exist within the pore spaces and fractures
of natural reservoir rocks. With uid withdrawal from a stress-sensitive reservoir,
rock compaction may occur, which leads to subsidence. Under certain circumstances,
reservoir subsidence can have a dramatic impact on reservoir production and man-
agement. The following eld cases demonstrate dierent subsidence scenarios and
their eects.
1.2. SOME HYDROCARBON WITHDRAWAL FIELD CASES 3
1.2.1 Wilmington Field
The Wilmington oil eld is located in Long Beach, California. Subsidence was rst
recognized in 1940 due to oil withdrawal from the subsurface. By 1941 subsidence of
0.4 m had been noted (Allen 1968). The aected area was about 50 km
2
. By 1962,
near the center of this area, the surface subsided up to 9 m. The horizontal movements
associated with subsidence produced extensive damage to wharfs, pipelines, buildings
and streets in this area. Costs of subsidence damage, repairs and preventive measures
ultimately totaled more than 100 million dollars. By 1960, large scale water injection
was under way and subsidence was almost immediately halted in the areas of injection.
By 1962 further subsidence had been greatly reduced, and the area with further
subsidence had been reduced to 8 km
2
(Allen 1972).
1.2.2 Valhall Field
The Valhall eld is a high porosity chalk reservoir, located about 190 km oshore
in the central part of the North Sea, at the southern tip of the Norwegian sector.
The eld was discovered in 1975, and eld development began in 1981. In 1986, after
only three and a half years of production, it became apparent that measured reservoir
pressures in the high-porosity portion (crestal area) of the eld were deviating sig-
nicantly from reservoir-model predictions, suggesting the presence of an additional
source of reservoir energy (Ruddy et al. 1989). In mid-1986, surface subsidence was
rst observed through satellite surveys, suggesting signicant rock compaction in the
crestal area. A number of computer modeling studies have been conducted on the
Valhall eld. Cook and Jewell (1995) found that compaction drives over 70 percent
of hydrocarbon recovery, and that the rock compressibilities in the reservoir crestal
area can be as high as 1.510
4
psi
1
, compared to a typical value of 310
6
psi
1
.
1.2.3 Ekosk Field
The Ekosk eld is located in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. The reservoir
is an elongated anticline with the major axis running North-South covering approxi-
mately 12,000 acres (Sulak & Danielsen 1989, Hermansen et al. 1997). The reservoir
produces from two fractured chalk horizons, the Ekosk and Tor formations, sep-
arated by a tight zone. Except for a limited number of fractured areas, this tight
zone prevents uid movement between the two formations. The Ekosk eld contains
an extensive natural fracture system which forms the primary conductive path for
produced hydrocarbons and injected uids. Permeabilities inferred from the analy-
sis of well tests are 150 md. Sea bed subsidence was rst observed at the Ekosk
complex in 1984. Total subsidence in February, 1989 was approximately 4.3 m, and
expected subsidence in the year 2011 is 6.1 m. Subsidence is also accompanied by
lateral movement toward the center of the subsidence bowl (Sulak & Danielsen 1989).
Water injection was initiated at Ekosk in 1987. It has been a success, contribut-
ing to a signicant increase in oil production rates. Initially, reservoir compaction
was believed to be related to increased eective stresses due to reservoir pressure
depletion alone. After the implementation of the Ekosk waterooding, reservoir
pressure depletion has been stalled and currently the eld is managed almost at con-
stant pressure. However, sea-bed subsidence rates have continued at a fairly constant
rate (Hermansen et al. 1997). Maury et al. (1996) and Hermansen et al. (1997) sug-
gested that the persistent compaction indicated a weakening of the chalk material
when in contact with non-equilibrium cold sea water. They also provided laboratory
data to support their observations. The discovery of subsidence and water induced
compaction at the Ekosk eld and other elds, including Valhall eld, prompted a
variety of eorts to develop methods to numerically simulate the relevant physical
processes. Chin & Prevost (1996) used a 3-D nite element model to demonstrate
that the water weakening eect on chalk compaction may make waterooding more
economically favorable for improving oil recovery from some North Sea chalk reser-
voirs.
1.2.4 South Belridge Field
The South Belridge eld, Kern County, California, produces from oil accumulations
in the shallow Tulare formation, an unconsolidated to loosely consolidated sandstone
formation of 122 to 183 m thickness (Hanse et al. 1993). The underlying diatomite
1.2. SOME HYDROCARBON WITHDRAWAL FIELD CASES 5
reservoir is a highly compressible formation averaging 305 m in thickness. In the mid-
1980s, operators in the eld experienced casing damage and an increasing number
of well failures. In January 1987, after a heavy rainstorm, surface ssures at the
north end of the eld were observed. The orientation of the ssures is approximately
parallel to that of the maximum horizontal principal stress measured in the formation
subsurface. Hanse et al. (1993) showed that the well failures and surface ssures are
related to reservoir depletion and the resulting compaction and subsidence in the
diatomite formation.
1.2.5 Summary of Dierent Field Cases
From the eld cases shown above, we can make several general observations as follows:
1. In all the eld cases, there were unaccounted-for mechanisms driving reservoir
production; subsidence was found to be the main driving force. This indicates
that it is very dicult to describe and model some reservoirs without correctly
taking account of geomechanical eects.
2. Subsurface subsidence and compaction is a very complicated phenomenon, which
could be caused by more than one mechanism. For example, in the case of the
Ekosk eld, pressure depletion is not the only factor for the reservoir com-
paction. The water weakening eect is another important factor which is im-
possible to quantify with uncoupled modeling.
3. Previous eorts to model geomechanics have led to inaccurate production pred-
ications. In the case of the Valhall Field, measured reservoir pressures in the
high-porosity portion were deviating signicantly from reservoir-model predic-
tions.
4. Subsidence may have both favorable and unfavorable eects on reservoir perfor-
mance at the same time. In most cases, subsurface subsidence has caused dam-
age to surface facilities and induced environmental hazards. However, proper
prediction and management of subsidence can improve hydrocarbon recoveries
and production eciency, as indicated in Sections 1.2.2 and 1.2.3.
1.3 Coupling Methods
As demonstrated in Section 1.2, subsurface subsidence and compaction can have
a signicant impact on dierent aspects of reservoir production and management.
Furthermore, it is not generally possible to accurately describe and predict subsidence
and compaction using uncoupled models. In this section, we will take a closer look
at dierent coupling models and their properties.
Land subsidence is a phenomenon that involves the lowering of the Earths surface.
The types of mechanisms causing land subsidence can be earthquakes, solid extrac-
tion, surface loading, and most importantly for current purposes, uid (hydrocarbon,
groundwater) withdrawal. As mentioned in Section 1.2.3, the water weakening mech-
anism could be another factor. In this study, we mainly focus on uid-withdrawal
induced subsidence and compaction.
1.3.1 Theory of Consolidation
Soft soils such as sand and clay consist of small particles, and the pore space be-
tween the particles is always lled with uids (liquids and gases). In the eld of soil
mechanics, a porous medium containing multiphase uids including air is called par-
tially saturated, while a porous medium containing only a single-phase uid is called
saturated. The deformation of reservoir rock depends not only upon the stiness
of the porous material, but also upon the behavior of the uids in the pores. The
simultaneous deformation of the porous material and ow of pore uids is the subject
of the theory of consolidation. The theory of consolidation applies to the subsidence
problems when caused by uid withdrawal.
Terzaghi (1943) introduced the rst consolidation theory for one-dimensional sys-
tems. Terzaghi investigated a one-dimensional consolidation problem of a horizontal
layer with a homogeneous load. In this problem, Terzaghi introduced the principles
of eective stresses. At the same time, Biots sequence of studies (1941a, 1941b, 1955,
1956a, 1956b) presented a general theory for three-dimensional consolidation prob-
lems and general elastic solutions for porous anisotropic materials. Biot based his
theory on a linear stress-strain constitutive relationship and a linear form of Darcys
1.3. COUPLING METHODS 7
law. Both Terzaghi and Biots analyses are linear, but they can be extended for non-
linear problems. Schiman et al. (1969), Christian & Boehmer (1970) and Yokoo et al.
(1971) have applied nite element techniques to the numerical analysis of soil consol-
idation with Biots elastic theory. Ghaboussi & Wilson (1973) introduced uid com-
pressibility into the theory of consolidation, and Lewis et al. (1976) investigated the
importance of permeability changes during consolidation. The consolidation model
can be considered to be nonlinear if permeability and uid compressibility change
during consolidation. Schreer et al. (1977) used Biots theory to model surface sub-
sidence. Small et al. (1976) included plasticity in the consolidation analysis. All the
above models have used displacements and pore pressure as primary variables.
1.3.2 Multiphase Flow Coupling
Traditionally, the theory of consolidation deals with single-phase problems, though
it can be extended to handle multiphase ow problems. In traditional decoupled
reservoir simulation and compaction models (Chin & Boade 1990, Koslo et al. 1980),
the pressure distribution is obtained from a reservoir simulator, then the pore pressure
changes are converted to equivalent nodal loads in the reservoir compaction and
subsidence model. The pressure dependent permeability and total compressibility
are calculated accordingly, and fed back to the reservoir simulator. The calculations
are continued in an explicitly coupled manner, which will be explained in detail in
Chapter 3. In 1993, Gutierrez & Hansteen (1994) used a compaction model to show
that compaction drive could not be properly represented by simply adjusting the
value of rock compressibilities used in traditional reservoir simulations. The reason
for this is that rock compressibility is dependent on stress paths, shear stress level and
overburden, and it is a dynamic factor. Therefore, for stress sensitive reservoirs, all
those eects can not be accounted for accurately by a simple compressibility model for
stress-sensitive reservoirs. The decoupled model at most proceeds with one iteration
between the stress model and the reservoir simulation model over a time interval,
hence phase lag will be unavoidable.
The theory describing uid-solid coupling was rst presented by Biot (1941a,
1956b). To be compatible with the conventional uid ow models (without geome-
chanical considerations), Biots theory was reinterpreted and reformulated along the
line of conventional uid-ow modeling by Geertsma (1957), Verruijt (1969), and
Chen et al. (1995).
Settari & Mourits (1994) present a method of modular coupling of a commercial
reservoir simulator with a 3-D stress code, where the porosity was used as a coupling
parameter between the geomechanical model and the reservoir simulator. They also
stated that the iterative coupling system is equivalent to a fully coupled solution at
convergence. Recently Settari & Walters (1999) discussed dierent degrees of cou-
pling and the consequences for the formulation of constitutive models. Basically the
degree of coupling is categorized into decoupled, explicitly coupled, iteratively cou-
pled and fully coupled. They also showed the advantages of exibility and reliability
of iteratively coupled methods.
A fully coupled treatment of three-phase uid ow in deforming reservoirs has
been presented by Lewis & Sukirman (1993). Gutierrez & Lewis (1998) emphasized
the importance of fully coupled models, and gave the formulation of Biots equations
for three-phase uid ow in deformable porous media. Gutierrez and Lewis also stated
that one advantage of the fully coupled method is that the system could be solved si-
multaneously using the same discretization method. Chen & Teufel (1997) examined
and extended Biots two-phase, isothermal, linear poroelastic theory from the porous
uid-ow modeling point of view, so that this theory can be more suitable for coupled
rock mechanics and uid ow problems. Based on Chen et al.s theory, Osorio et al.
(1997) provided a 3-D nite-dierence fully-coupled model to simulate the physical
phenomena occurring during production from reservoirs with stress-sensitive proper-
ties, with the assumptions of single-phase ow and isotropic rocks. Chin et al. (1998)
built a fully coupled model to analyze pressure transient problems in stress-sensitive
reservoirs, with a single-phase ow nite-element model. Dean (2000) and Tortike
(1991) developed an essentially iteratively coupled method using a the nite element
methods to solve the force balance equations and a nite dierence method to solve
multicomponent multiphase mass balance equations.
1.4. NUMERICAL INSTABILITY 9
1.4 Numerical Instability
Stability in space and time is rarely discussed in the literature outlined in Section
1.3. In order to build a robust and accurate numerical model to solve this coupled
problem, it would be worthwhile to look into the accuracy and stability properties
for existing methods.
Vermeer & Verruijt (1981) showed a stability condition for a simple consolidation
problem, which required the time steps to be larger than a certain value, otherwise
oscillations would occur. This is a quite counterintuitive conclusion, because for
a convergent numerical method, the discretization error tends to approach zero as
the grid and time-step sizes approach zero. Upon further study, we learned that
the mechanism behind this is what is generally called the saddle point problem,
where the solution is a stationary value. The application of equal interpolations of
pressure and displacements, though a natural selection of elements, will violate the
Babu ska-Brezzi stability condition (B-B condition)(Babu ska 1971, Brezzi & Fortin
1991). Thus, pressure oscillations will normally occur.
Zienkiewicz et al. (1990) showed that the drained and undrained soil mechanics
problems were restricted by the B-B condition, which requires non-uniform interpo-
lation of the displacement and pore-pressure variables. Murad & Loula (1992, 1994)
performed numerical analysis and error estimates on nite element approximations
of Biots consolidation problem. They showed that an incompressible Stokes system
at the initial state led to instability if the B-B condition was not satised. They also
proposed a sequential Petrov-Galerkin post-processing technique to improve the rates
of convergence of the pore pressure. In addition, they showed that the error gener-
ated at the initial time step would decay exponentially with time. Zienkiewicz et al.
(1990) introduced an -method to avoid B-B restrictions, in which the stabilization
was based on modifying the time stepping procedures.
All of the discussion in this section is directed toward the single phase consolida-
tion problem. Instability issues have not been addressed for coupled geomechanics
and multiphase ow problems. This leads us to a consideration of suitable numerical
methods in a fully coupled framework. We will present new stabilized nite ele-
ment methods for coupled problems in a new framework. These ideas will be further
described in the following two sections.
1.5 Stabilized Finite Element Methods
The standard Galerkin nite element method can be roughly described as being an
approximation of a variational space of functions which are spanned by piecewise
polynomials. The discrete system arising from such an approximation is simple and
has the ability to solve problems with high order of accuracy. However, the standard
approaches presented in the literature often fail for incompressible Stokes problems
and advection-dominated problems.
The rst of a new class of methods was developed in the late 1970s (Taylor
& Iding 1973) to overcome the drawbacks of Galerkin methods. The Streamline
Upwind Petrov-Galerkin (SUPG) method (Brooks & Hughes 1982) is one example
of a general class of methods possessing good accuracy and stability. Another class
of methods, Galerkin/Least-Squares (GLS) methods, were established by Hughes et
al. (1989). They have later been referred to as Stabilized methods (Hughes et
al. 1994). Hughes et al. (1986) built the stabilized methods to circumvent the B-B
restrictions for incompressible Stokes problems. Stabilized nite element methods are
within the category of weighted residual methods. Weighted residual methods modify
the bilinear form associated with the problem so that improved numerical stability is
achieved without compromising consistency. Zienkiewicz & Wu (1991) showed similar
stabilization by modifying time stepping forms of the associated transient problems.
In this work, we adopt the general approach of stabilized methods, and develop
stabilized nite element schemes to control the numerical instability arising in consol-
idation problems without losing consistency. Using this approach, any combination of
interpolations of pressure and displacements can be used. We will also apply stabilized
method on the pressure-velocity equations (Masud & Hughes 2002). Both continu-
ous elements and discontinuous elements will be compared. This pressure-velocity
formulation can also be used to solve consolidation problems.
1.6. FRAMEWORK FOR COUPLING 11
Classical reservoir simulation equations can be reformulated in terms of a essen-
tially parabolic single pressure equation describing the pressure eld throughout the
reservoir, and one or more essentially hyperbolic saturation equations describing the
propagation of uid fronts (Peaceman 1977, Aziz & Settari 1979). Trangenstein & Bell
(1989, 1989) showed that this model is applicable for both black oil and compositional
systems. We will use stabilized nite element methods to solve the reformulated pres-
sure equation and the force balance equation. By this approach, pressure oscillations
can be isolated in the pressure equation.
1.6 Framework for Coupling
By combining the reformulated pressure equation with the force balance equations,
we can only solve one aspect of the coupling problem. The other diculties remain:
which method to use for the saturation equations, and how to combine the stabilized
methods we developed in this manner with reservoir simulators?
In the eld of reservoir simulation, control volume nite dierence methods have
been applied routinely and the upwinding technique is essential to get the correct
numerical results. Finite element methods show great advantages for unstructured
grids and they allow systematic stability and convergence analyses. However, the
Galerkin and upwind nite element methods are not successful for reservoir simulation
problems, and have not been developed to the stage of routine usage for such problems.
In the practical use of reservoir simulation, local and global mass conservation is
important. Hughes et al. (2000) addressed the conservation issue of continuous nite
element methods by showing that local conservation can be achieved by correctly
computing ux.
Four general classes of improved nite element methods can be summarized from
the literature: (1) Mixed Finite Element Method (Brezzi & Fortin 1991, Douglas
1980, Darlow et al. 1984) applied on the total Darcys law and the conservation of
total mass; (2) Stabilized Discontinuous Pressure and Continuous Velocity method
(Masud & Hughes 2002) applied on the total Darcy law and the conservation of
total mass; (3) Localized Adjoint Method with the method of characteristics for
the convection-diusion equation (Varoglu & Finn 1980, Celia et al. 1990, Wang et
al. 2000); (4) Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method (Riviere & Wheeler 2000) applied
on the convection-diusion equation. Mixed nite element and nite volume methods
have also been developed. For example, A mixed nite element and Total Variation
Diminishing (TVD) nite volume method for unstructured grids was developed by
Durlofsky (1993).
In this study, we propose a new framework with stabilized nite element methods
for solving the force balance and pressure equations, and nite dierence methods
for solving the component mass balance equations. The global equations are solved
in a fully coupled fashion, without any phase lag. In this way, the stability and
accuracy can be improved over typical fully coupled methods in the literature, and
state-of-the-art nite element techniques in geomechanics area and control volume
nite dierence techniques in reservoir simulation areas can be used. For example,
although we are only going to deal with elastic problems, plasticity developed by
nite element methods can be incorporated into this framework without too much
additional eort. A notable property of this framework is that single phase and
multiphase eects on compaction can be distinguished, therefore their impacts on
predictions can be studied.
Another alternative fully coupled approach is to use the nite element method
to solve the force balance equations, and the nite dierence method to solve all of
the mass balance equations. This approach solves the equation system simultane-
ously without any phase lag. We will also develop this approach, so that it can be
compared with the existing iteratively coupled approach and the proposed stabilized
approach. However this fully coupled approach is still subject to the restriction of
the B-B condition, as is the iteratively coupled approach. To summarize, our imple-
mentation includes the existing methods, such as iteratively coupled method, fully
coupled method and the new framework with stabilization techniques.
1.7. DISCUSSION 13
1.7 Discussion
As the literature suggests, coupling of a uid ow simulator with a geomechanical
model is of signicant interest to both practicing engineers and researchers. Cur-
rently two approaches are considered to be most accurate for the coupled models:
the Iteratively Coupled Method (ICM) and the Fully Coupled Method (FCM). In the
Iteratively Coupled Method, pore pressure changes are calculated from a uid ow
simulator and converted to nodal loads. From these nodal loads, the in situ stress
changes and rock displacements are calculated in a geomechanical simulator. Itera-
tions are performed between the uid ow simulation model and the geomechanical
model at every time step to ensure that the porosity and permeability can be calcu-
lated properly through the geomechanical simulator. Gutierrez & Hansteen (1994)
pointed out possible drawbacks in iteratively coupled approach for cases with negative
compressibility, as occurs when the rock increases in volume while the pore pressure
is decreased due to dilation during shearing. In our understanding, ICM is basically
equivalent to the modied Newton Raphson version of FCM. For complicated solu-
tion search spaces, ICM may have convergence problems. However, ICM will usually
converge to the exact solution, though it may require more iterations than FCM.
FCM requires all the equations being set up in one Jacobian matrix, therefore the
equations are solved in a more consistent fashion.
The main advantage of ICM is its exibility and modularity. ICM can be used
to integrate well developed nite element geomechanical codes with advanced nite
dierence uid ow codes. Theoretically, if converged, ICM should give the same
results as those from the Fully Coupled Method (FCM). However, in practice, the
coupling terms can not be treated in the same way in a system with two discretization
methods as with a single discretization method. The stability and uniqueness of the
solution may also be of concern for ICM.
FCM is the most robust method, but currently there are only a few implemen-
tations considering multiphase ows. Lewis & Sukirman (1993) built a robust fully
coupled geomechanics and black oil model using the nite element method. However
it is dicult to make their model compatible with the unstructured control volume
multiphase, multicomponent ow simulators. Stone et al. (2000) and Chen et al.
(1995) developed fully coupled models using nite dierence methods, but the exten-
sion of the geomechanical model to plasticity and unstructured grids poses challenges.
The models we develop here include a fully coupled model, an iteratively coupled
model and a fully coupled model with stabilization techniques. They all develop the
geomechanical part by nite element methods and the reservoir ow part by nite
dierence methods, except in the fully coupled model with stabilization techniques,
the reformulated pressure equation is solved by nite element methods. In general,
the models with hybrid nite element and nite dierence methods can incorporate
techniques developed in both the geomechanics and reservoir ow areas easily. In
this study, dierent coupling approaches will be compared; the eects of the coupling
terms will be evaluated; the stability improvement by built-in stabilization approaches
will be studied.
1.8 Outline of the Thesis
In the following chapters, we will discuss our approach in more detail. The organiza-
tion of this thesis is as follows:
Chapter 2 starts with the general mathematical model for coupled geomechanics
and multiphase, multicomponent ow. Next, geomechanics models with single
phase and two phase uid ow are described and studied.
Chapter 3 describes how the coupling leads to a saddle point problem, and the
resulting stability issues.
Chapter 4 briey summarizes the background information about stabilized nite
element methods, then demonstrates how these techniques can improve the
numerical stability without compromising consistency.
Chapter 5 gives numerical experiments and validation of compaction with single
phase ow.
1.8. OUTLINE OF THE THESIS 15
Chapter 6 introduces the new framework with the newly developed stabilization
method, then shows how it diers from existing methods.
Chapter 7 discusses the three coupled approaches developed here, then presents
numerical experiments for compaction with multiphase ow and provides some
examples to demonstrate the applicability of this new approach.
Chapter 8 concludes this thesis and identies several avenues for future research.
Chapter 2
Mathematical Models
The main focus of this study is the coupled system of geomechanics and multiphase
ow equations. We will rst study the governing partial dierential equations. In
order to have a better understanding of the coupled system, we will simplify the
generalized system to a much simpler single-phase system, for which the theory of
consolidation is applicable. Terzaghis problem (Terzaghi 1943) will be used to study
the spatial stability in the numerical formulation. Then we will derive a modied
formulation for the black-oil system, i.e., the three-phase system with water, oil and
solid phases. This will be the base model for us to develop fully coupled and iteratively
coupled schemes, come up with strategies to incorporate the stabilized schemes we
will develop, and compare dierent coupling schemes.
2.1 Coupled Geomechanics and Multiphase Flow
In general, reservoir deformation occurs very slowly compared to multiphase ow.
Hence, one of the fundamental assumptions of the geomechanical model is the small
strain theory, in which the solid velocity is much smaller than the uid velocity, i.e.,
v
s
v
f
, where v
s
is the solid velocity and v
f
is the uid velocity. In this section,
we will derive the governing partial dierential equations for the generalized coupled
system, using the small strain assumption.
17
18 CHAPTER 2. MATHEMATICAL MODELS
2.1.1 Mass Balance Equations
By using the same control volume, we can derive the mass balance equations for both
solid and uid phases. These derivations are consistent with those in Verruijt (1995)
and Lewis & Schreer (1998).
Solid Phase
The mass balance equation for the porous solid material is
t
(1 )
s
+ (1 )
s
v
s
= 0 (2.1)
where v
s
is the solid velocity, the formation porosity, and
s
the solid density. Here
we assume that all deformations of the solid matrix are caused by a rearrangement
of incompressible solid particles. Therefore, the solid density
s
is constant and Eq.
(2.1) is reduced to
t
(1 ) + (1 )v
s
= 0 (2.2)
Rearranging Eq. (2.2), yields:
(1 )
t
+v
s
(1 ) + (1 ) v
s
= 0 (2.3)
By introducing the volumetric strain
vol
,
vol
= u
s
(2.4)
where u
s
is the solid displacement, we can have
v
s
=
du
s
dt
=
d
vol
dt
(2.5)
With the denition of material derivatives
df
dt
=
f
t
+v
s
f (2.6)
2.1. COUPLED GEOMECHANICS AND MULTIPHASE FLOW 19
Eq. (2.2) can be nally written as
d(1 )
dt
+ (1 )
d
vol
dt
= 0 (2.7)
After some rearrangement, we can write
1
1
d(1 )
dt
=
d
vol
dt
(2.8)
Upon integration, the variation of porosity can be expressed as
= 1 (1
0
)e
vol
+
vol,0
(2.9)
where
0
is the initial porosity, and
vol,0
is the initial volumetric strain, which is
usually zero.
Fluid Phase
Petroleum reservoir uids contain thousands of chemical components with dierent
properties that can exist in up to three phases with complex phase behaviors. It is not
practical to describe the reservoir uids as functions of individual components. Engi-
neers normally consider the hydrocarbon system to be black-oil or compositional. The
selection is usually based on the volatility of the oil. If the oil and gas are described
by more than two pseudo-components, the system is considered to be compositional.
Otherwise, it is represented by whats called a black-oil model.
Lake (1989) showed the details of how to derive the governing equations of a
multiphase uid model. We will only briey outline the derivations of their equations.
Suppose that the reservoir uid consists of n
c
components in n
p
phases, and the
variables are dened as: intrinsic phase-averaged density
p
of phase p, intrinsic
density
cp
of component c in phase p, mass fraction A
cp
of component c in phase p,
interstitial velocity v
p
of phase p, interstitial velocity v
cp
of component c in phase p.
The following relationships hold:
p
=
n
c
c=1
cp
(2.10)
A
cp
=

cp
p
(2.11)
v
p
=
1
p
n
c
c=1
cp
v
cp
=
n
c
c=1
A
cp
v
cp
(2.12)
With the above denitions, the mass balance equation for component c in phase p is
t
S
p
A
cp
p
+ (S
p
A
cp
p
v
cp
) = m
cp
(2.13)
where S
p
is the saturation of phase p and m
cp
is the gain of component c in phase p
through phase change.
The macroscopic diusive-dispersive velocity u
cp
is
u
cp
= v
cp
v
p
(2.14)
and the diusive-dispersive mass ux of component c in phase p is
J
cp
= S
p
cp
A
cp
u
cp
(2.15)
Substituting Eq. (2.14) and Eq. (2.15) in Eq. (2.13), we obtain
t
S
p
A
cp
p
+ (S
p
A
cp
p
v
p
) + J
cp
= m
cp
(2.16)
With the assumption of no chemical reactions, the total mass of component c is
constant, therefore
n
p
p=1
m
cp
= 0 (2.17)
which leads to n
c
mass balance equations:
t
n
p
p=1
S
p
A
cp
p
+
n
p
p=1
(S
p
A
cp
p
v
p
) +
n
p
p=1
J
cp
= 0 (2.18)
where the diusive-dispersive mass ux term J
cp
is governed by Ficks law (Bear 1972)
J
cp
=
p
D
cp
A
cp
(2.19)
Eq. (2.18) is the standard formulation used in conventional reservoir simulation
models, in which the dispersion (J
cp
= 0) is often neglected. The only dierence in
the coupled system from this formulation is that the solid phase movement needs to
be considered. Considering the solid phase as the reference phase, we can rewrite the
phase velocity as
v
p
= v
s
+ v
ps
(2.20)
where v
ps
is the relative interstitial velocity of phase p with respect to the solid phase.
Expanding and reorganizing Eq. (2.18) with the substitution of Eq. (2.20), we
have

t
n
p
p=1
S
p
A
cp
p
+
n
p
p=1
(S
p
A
cp
p
v
ps
)
+v
s

n
p
p=1
(S
p
A
cp
p
) +
n
p
p=1
S
p
A
cp
p
[
t
+ (v
s
)] = 0 (2.21)
From Eq. (2.2), we can write
t
+ (v
s
) = v
s
(2.22)
Then we can eliminate the time derivative of the porosity from Eq. (2.18) and obtain

t
n
p
p=1
S
p
A
cp
p
+
n
p
p=1
(S
p
A
cp
p
v
ps
)
+
n
p
p=1
S
p
A
cp
p
v
s
+ v
s

n
p
p=1
(S
p
A
cp
p
) = 0 (2.23)
where the last term v
s

n
p
p=1
(S
p
A
cp
p
) on the left-hand side is often neglected
because the deformation velocity v
s
is small. However, since the gradients of satura-
tion dependent terms might be large around a shock front, we will keep this term for
later investigation.
2.1.2 Linear Momentum Balance Equation of Fluid Phase
Darcys velocity of phase p can be represented as
v
ps
= S
p
v
ps
=
kk
rp
p
[p
p
+
p
g] (2.24)
where k is the permeability tensor of the porous media and
p
is the viscosity of the
phase p, k
rp
is the relative permeability of phase p, p
p
is the pressure of phase p, and
g is the gravity vector. We assume the movement of the solid is slow in this study,
therefore Darcys law is still valid without acceleration terms.
2.1.3 Force Balance Equation of Solid Phase
The set of equilibrium equations presented in this section are from the classical linear
elastostatics theory (Timoshenko & Goodier 1969). Summation on repeated indices
is implied. Let
ij
denote the Cartesian components of the symmetric stress tensor,
u
i
the displacement vector, and f
i
the prescribed body force per unit volume. The
strain tensor,
ij
, is equal to the symmetric part of the displacement gradients u
(i,j)
,
ij
= u
(i,j)
(2.25)
where u
(i,j)
is dened to be
u
i,j
+u
j,i
2
. The equilibrium equation is
ij,j
+ f
i
= 0 (2.26)
Eq. (2.26) can also be written in invariant form as
+f = 0 (2.27)
The total stress is related to the eective stress
by the generalized Terzaghi

principle. Assuming the solid grains are incompressible, the relationship between the
total stress and the eective stress is (Terzaghi 1943)
=
p
s
I (2.28)
where I is the identity tensor, and p
s
is the pore pressure, dened as
p
s
=
n
p
p=1
S
p
p
p
The eective stress is a measure of the concentrated forces transmitted from grain to
grain at the contact points, excluding the pore pressure. Substituting Eq. (2.28) into
Eq. (2.27), yields:

p
s
+f = 0 (2.29)
2.1.4 Denition of Solid Parameters
Before introducing solid-phase constitutive relationships, we will briey review the
denitions of Youngs modulus (E), Poissons ratio (), bulk modulus (K), and shear
modulus (G).
Youngs modulus is the constant ratio of stress and strain during elastic defor-
mation. It has the unit of stress.
Poissons ratio is the ratio of transverse compressive strain to longitudinal ex-
tensional strain in the direction of stretching force. It is dimensionless.
Bulk modulus gives the change in pressure as the volume of a solid substance
changes, which is shown by
K = V
dp
dV
(2.30)
It has the unit of pressure.
Shear modulus is the ratio of shear stress to shear strain on the loading plane.
It is normally called rigidity, and it has the unit of pressure.
2.1.5 Solid Phase Constitutive Relationships
In solving the coupled model of the compaction system and reservoir uid ow, it is
very important to utilize a realistic representation of the stress-strain characteristics
for the porous medium. The choice of constitutive relationships will have a signicant
inuence on the numerical results. The eective solid stress is related to the solid
strain in general via a nonlinear constitutive equation (Chin et al. 1998),
= f
s
(
s
,

K) (2.31)
where
s
is the solid strain and

K denotes a set of history dependent tensorial quan-
tities. For a linear poroelastic solid media, the eective stresses are related to the
strains by the generalized form of Hookes law, shown as
ij
= c
ijkl
kl
(2.32)
where the c
ijkl
are elastic coecients. The elastic coecients are assumed to satisfy
the following properties:
c
ijkl
= c
klij
(2.33)
c
ijkl
= c
jikl
(2.34)
c
ijkl
= c
ijlk
(2.35)
The symmetry properties of the elastic coecients lead to the symmetry of the stress
tensor. If the body in question is isotropic, then we have
c
ijkl
= (
ik
jl
+
il
jk
) +
ij
kl
(2.36)
where
ij
is the Dirac operator. Eq. (2.36) leads to the generalized form of Hookes
law for a linear isotropic poroelastic solid skeleton:
= I u + 2 (2.37)
where and are the elastic coecients of the material, or Lames constants. They
are related to the bulk modulus K and the shear modulus G by the relationship
(Timoshenko & Goodier 1969)
= K
2
3
G, G = (2.38)
The relationships between Lames constants and Youngs modulus E and Poissons
ratio are:
G =
E
2(1 + )
(2.39)
=
E
(1 + )(1 2)
(2.40)
Theoretically the range of Poissons ratio is between -1 and 1/2, but there are no
materials found having negative Poissons ratio.
2.1.6 Summary of the Initial Boundary Value Problem
We now dene the problem domain.
s
is the domain of a deforming porous medium,
and
f
is the domain of multiphase uids.
s
usually contains
f
, so
s

f
.
s
is
the boundary of the deforming porous media domain and
f
is the boundary of the
multiphase uid domain. We summarize the governing equations for a fully coupled
system of compaction and multiphase uid models as follows.
Mass Balance Equations of Solid in
s
Solid particles are assumed to be incompressible, and the mass balance equation is
t
(1 ) + (1 )v
s
= 0 (2.41)
The variation of porosity is
= 1 (1
0
) exp[
vol
] (2.42)
with
v
s
=

vol
t
(2.43)
Mass Balance Equations of Multiphase Multicomponent Fluid in
f
The mass balance equations of n
c
components are

t
n
p
p=1
S
p
A
cp
p
+
n
p
p=1
(A
cp
p
v
ps
)
+
n
p
p=1
S
p
A
cp
p
v
s
+ v
s

n
p
p=1
(S
p
A
cp
p
) = 0 (2.44)
Linear Momentum Balance Equation of Fluid in
f
The linear momentum balance equation for uid is Darcys law (Eq. 2.24)
v
ps
= S
p
v
ps
=
kk
rp
p
[p
p
+
p
g] (2.45)
Equilibrium Equations in
s

(
n
p
p=1
S
p
p
p
) +f = 0 (2.46)
The solid eective stress is related to the solid strain via a constitutive equation. The
linear elastic relationship can be expressed as
= I u + 2 (2.47)
One choice of primary variables can be the displacements u and phase 1 pressure
p, the saturations of other phases S
i
, i = 2...n
p
, and n
c
n
p
mass fractions A
ij
. The
calculation of the rest of the unknowns, such as (n
c
n
p
n
c
+ n
p
) A
ij
and n
p
1
pressures, is described in the reservoir simulation notes of Aziz & Settari (1979). The
main idea is to calculate the remaining mass fractions by equations of state and phase
equilibrium relationships, and the other pressures and saturations by using capillary
pressure relationship, phase constraints and saturation constraints.
Initial and Boundary Conditions
It is necessary to dene the initial conditions (ICs) and boundary conditions (BCs).
The initial conditions are:
u = u
0
in
s
p = p
0
in
f
S
i
= S
i0
, i = 2...n
p
in
f
The boundary conditions are
u = u on
s1
n =

h on
s2
p = p on
f1
v
js
= 0 on
f2
where
s1

s2
=
s
,
f1

f2
=
f
, and the unit normal vector n = n
x
, n
y
, n
z
T
.
2.2 Theory of Consolidation for Single Phase Fluid
2.2.1 Summary of Equations
In a coupled system with only one single-component uid phase, note that S
p
= 1
and k
rp
= 1. Eq. (2.44) can be simplied as
f
t
+ (
f
v
f
) +
f
v
s
+ v
s

f
= 0 (2.48)
where the subscript f denotes the uid phase. We can dene the compressibility of
uid c
f
as
c
f
=
1
f
d
f
dp
(2.49)
or
d
f
= c
f
f
dp (2.50)
Substituting Eq. (2.50) into Eq. (2.48) and dividing both sides by
f
, we obtain
c
f
p
t
+ v
fs
+ v
s
+ c
f
v
fs
p + c
f
v
s
p = 0 (2.51)
2.2. THEORY OF CONSOLIDATION FOR SINGLE PHASE FLUID 29
For slightly compressible uids, c
f
p is usually very small (Verruijt 1995). If we
neglect the last two terms of on the left-hand side of Eq. (2.51), and substitute with
Eq. (2.45), we have
c
f
p
t

k
f
(p
f
g) + v
s
= 0 (2.52)
The substitution with Eq. (2.43) leads to
vol
t
= c
f
p
t

k
f
(p
f
g) (2.53)
Eq. (2.53) is called the storage equation (Verruijt 1995), and is one of the most
important equations in the theory of consolidation. It can be interpreted as balancing
the compression of the porous media by the compression of the pore uid and the
amount of uid expelled by uid ow. The force balance equation for the single phase
consolidation problem can be simplied as (see Eq. 2.46)

p +f = 0 (2.54)
2.2.2 One-Dimensional Consolidation
The system of equations for consolidation problems in a saturated poroelastic medium
consists of the storage equation (2.53), the force balance equation (2.54) and the
stress-strain relationship (2.37). For multi-dimensional consolidation problems, the
system of equations needs to be solved numerically. However, for one-dimensional
consolidation problems, only the deformation in the vertical direction needs to be
considered. Therefore the system of equations can be simplied signicantly. Under
certain circumstances, it is possible to obtain analytical solutions to one-dimensional
consolidation problems.
We now derive a modication of storage equation (2.53) for the one-dimensional
problem. Assume the problem direction is vertical, then the volume change occurs
only due to vertical deformation, therefore
vol
=
zz
(2.55)
and
zz
is determined by the vertical eective stress:
zz
= c
r
zz
(2.56)
where c
r
is the compressibility of the solid and
c
r
=
1
+ 2
(2.57)
according to Eq. (2.37). Based on Terzaghis principle of eective stress, the vertical
eective stress is the summation of the total stress and the pore pressure,
zz
=
zz
+ p (2.58)
Combining Eq. (2.56) and (2.58), we have
vol
t
= c
r
zz
t
= c
r
(
zz
t
+
p
t
) (2.59)
Substituting Eq. (2.59) into Eq. (2.53) and neglecting the gravity eect, we obtain
(c
r
+ c
f
)
p
t
= c
r
zz
t
+

z
(
k
p
z
) (2.60)
Terzaghis Problem
Fig. 2.1 illustrates the conguration of Terzaghis problem (Terzaghi 1943). It is for a
layer of thickness 2h, with a load of constant magnitude q applied very suddenly onto
the formation at time t = 0. The upper and lower boundaries of the porous media
are fully drained, so that the reference pore pressure at the boundaries remains zero.
2.2. THEORY OF CONSOLIDATION FOR SINGLE PHASE FLUID 31
2h
x
z
q
Figure 2.1: Description of Terzaghis problem
Assuming the uid mobility k/ is constant, we can rewrite Eq. (2.60) as
(c
r
+ c
f
)
p
t
= c
r
zz
t
+
k
2
p
z
2
(2.61)
The rst term on the right-hand side of Eq. (2.61) represents the loading rate, which
is very large at the moment of loading, and is zero afterwards. The second term
on the right-hand side is negligible at the moment of loading. Assuming t 0,
integrating both sides of Eq. (2.61) over a short time interval, t, yields:
p =
c
r
c
r
+ c
f
zz
(2.62)
Thus, if at time t = 0 the vertical stress suddenly increases from 0 to
max
, the pore
uid pressure at t = 0
+
becomes
p
0
=
c
r
c
r
+ c
f
max
(2.63)
When the uid is practically incompressible (c
f
0), the coecient of the right hand
side of Eq. (2.63) approaches 1, indicating that the initial pore pressure is equal to
the external load. Thus initially the uid carries all the load, due to the fact that no
uid has yet been drained out of the soil, so there is no deformation yet. After the
load has been applied, Eq. (2.61) reduces to
p
t
= c
v
2
p
z
2
(2.64)
where c
v
is the consolidation coecient, dened as
c
v
=
k
(c
r
+ c
f
)
(2.65)
The initial condition is
t = 0
+
: p = p
0
=
c
r
c
r
+ c
f
max
(2.66)
with the boundary conditions
z = 0 : p = 0 (2.67)
z = 2h : p = 0 (2.68)
The solution of this problem can be obtained by the separation of variables or the
Laplace transform method. The details can be found in Terzaghi (1943) and Verruijt
(1995). The nal solution is
p
p
0
=
4
j=1
_
(1)
j1
2j 1
cos
_
(2j 1)
2
(
h z
h
)
exp
_
(2j 1)
2
2
4
c
v
t
h
2
_
(2.69)
Fig. 2.2 shows Terzaghis solution graphically. At the initial time, the dimensionless
time parameter c
v
t/h
2
is small, the pores are almost undrained except for the two
ends, where the pore pressure in the middle of the layer equals p
0
. As time increases,
the stress relaxes and the pore pressure decreases. When c
v
t/h
2
equals 2, the pore
pressure is almost the same as the pore pressure at the boundaries.
2.3. EQUATIONS FOR W/O/S SYSTEM 33
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2.0
z
/
h
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
p/p
0

2 1 0.5 0.2 0.1
0.05
0.02
0.01
c
v
t/h
2
=
Figure 2.2: Analytical solution of Terzaghis problem
2.3 Equations for Water-Oil-Solid System
Isothermal black-oil models have been widely used in reservoir simulation. Because
the focus of this study is on coupling and numerical methods, we consider the black-oil
model as both a practical model and one which is representative of more complicated
models. Here we study a water-oil system, which implies immiscible water and oil
phases, isothermal ow, and instantaneous thermodynamic equilibrium, as elaborated
in Aziz & Settari (1979). Under these assumptions, the mass balance equations (Eq.
2.44) becomes

t
S
w
w
+ (
w
v
ws
) + S
w
w
v
s
+v
s
(S
w
w
) = 0 (2.70)

t
S
o
o
+ (
o
v
os
) + S
w
o
v
s
+v
s
(S
o
o
) = 0 (2.71)
and the force balance equation (Eq. 2.46) becomes

(p
o
S
w
P
c
) +f = 0 (2.72)
with
p
s
=
np
p=1
S
p
p
p
= S
o
p
o
+ S
w
p
w
= p
o
S
w
P
c
(2.73)
because we have P
c
= p
o
p
w
and S
w
+ S
o
= 1.
In reservoir simulation, uid sinks and sources are dened at standard conditions
(atmospheric conditions). Following the notation in Aziz (1997), we dene the for-
mation volume factor B
p
of phase p as V
p
/V
p,p
, where V
p
is the volume of phase p
at the reservoir conditions, V
c,p
is the volume of component c liberated from phase
p at standard conditions. In our case, there is only one component present in each
phase. Therefore, B
p
can be expressed in terms of densities, B
p
=
p
/
p
, and
p
is
the density of phase p at the standard condition, which is a constant for any specic
uid. Dividing Eq. (2.70) and (2.71) by
p
and dening b
p
= 1/B
p
=
p
/
p
, we have

t
(S
w
b
w
) + (b
w
v
ws
) + S
w
b
w
v
s
+v
s
(S
w
b
w
) = q
w
(2.74a)

t
(S
o
b
o
) + (b
o
v
os
) + S
o
b
o
v
s
+v
s
(S
o
b
o
) = q
o
(2.74b)
with the addition of source (sink) terms. The source term is dened as the ow rate
of phase p per unit reservoir volume at standard conditions. Using the denition of
material derivatives (Eq. 2.6), Eq. (2.74) becomes
d
dt
(S
w
b
w
) + (b
w
v
ws
) + S
w
b
w
v
s
= q
w
(2.75a)
d
dt
(S
o
b
o
) + (b
o
v
os
) + S
o
b
o
v
s
= q
o
(2.75b)
In order to clearly present the mathematical properties of the equations, such as
the parabolic and hyperbolic character of the equations, we will derive alternative
formulations for the governing equations in this section. The derivations are similar
to those in classical reservoir simulations texts (Aziz & Settari 1979, Peaceman 1977).
2.3.1 Pressure Equation - Parabolic Form
Applying the chain rules on Eq. (2.75), we have
b
w
dS
w
dt
+ S
w
db
w
dt
+ (b
w
v
ws
) + S
w
b
w
v
s
= q
w
(2.76a)
b
o
dS
o
dt
+ S
o
db
o
dt
+(b
o
v
os
) + S
o
b
o
v
s
= q
o
(2.76b)
If we divide both sides of Eq. (2.76) by b
w
and b
o
respectively, we obtain
dS
w
dt
+
S
w
b
w
db
w
dt
+
1
b
w
(b
w
v
ws
) + S
w
v
s
=
q
w
b
w
(2.77a)
dS
o
dt
+
S
o
b
o
db
o
dt
+
1
b
o
(b
o
v
os
) + S
o
v
s
=
q
o
b
o
(2.77b)
By denition, we have
c
p
=
1
p
d
p
dp
p
=
1
p
/
p
d(
p
/
p
)
dp
p
=
1
b
p
db
p
dp
p
(2.78)
therefore
db
p
b
p
= c
p
dp
p
(2.79)
Substitute Eq. (2.79) into Eq. (2.77), we obtain equations for S
p
and p
p
explicitly:
dS
w
dt
+ S
w
c
w
dp
w
dt
+
1
b
w
(b
w
v
ws
) + S
w
v
s
=
q
w
b
w
(2.80a)
dS
o
dt
+ S
o
c
o
dp
o
dt
+
1
b
o
(b
o
v
os
) + S
o
v
s
=
q
o
b
o
(2.80b)
Then, combing Eq. (2.80a) and Eq. (2.80b) to eliminate time derivatives of S
w
and
S
o
, yields:
(S
w
c
w
dp
w
dt
+ S
o
c
o
dp
o
dt
) +
1
b
w
(b
w
v
ws
) +
1
b
o
(b
o
v
os
) + v
s
=
q
w
b
w
+
q
o
b
o
(2.81)
The primary variables for this system are S
w
and p
o
. The derivative of p
w
still contains
the derivative of S
w
, since p
w
= p
o
P
c
and the capillary pressure P
c
is a function of
S
w
: P
c
= P
c
(S
w
). Therefore Eq. (2.81) becomes
(S
w
c
w
+ S
o
c
o
)
dp
o
dt
S
w
c
w
P
c
(S
w
)
dS
w
dt
+ v
s
+
1
b
w
(b
w
v
ws
) +
1
b
o
(b
o
v
os
) =
q
w
b
w
+
q
o
b
o
(2.82)
Eq. (2.80b) can be written as
S
o
c
o
dp
o
dt

dS
w
dt
+
1
b
o
(b
o
v
os
) + S
o
v
s
=
q
o
b
o
(2.83)
Therefore, we can eliminate the derivative of S
w
from Eq. (2.82) using Eq. (2.83),
and obtain the pressure equation
(S
w
c
w
+ (1 )S
o
c
o
)
dp
o
dt
+
1
b
w
(b
w
v
ws
) +
1
b
o
(b
o
v
os
)
+(1 S
o
) v
s
=
q
w
b
w
+
(1 ) q
o
b
o
(2.84)
where
= S
w
c
w
P
c
(S
w
) (2.85)
Since water is normally almost incompressible, c
w
should be very small, indicating
that 1.
The assumption of small strain theory yields
dp
o
dt
=
p
o
t
+v
s
p
o

p
o
t
(2.86)
Therefore the pressure equation (Eq. 2.84) becomes
(S
w
c
w
+ (1 )S
o
c
o
)
p
o
t
+
1
b
w
(b
w
v
ws
) +
1
b
o
(b
o
v
os
)
+(1 S
o
) v
s
=
q
w
b
w
+
(1 ) q
o
b
o
(2.87)
It is convenient to dene the mobility of phase p as
p
= k
rp
/
p
, and
p
=
p
k. With
these denitions and Darcys law, Eq. (2.45), substituted in Eq. (2.87), we have
(S
w
c
w
+ (1 )S
o
c
o
)
p
o
t
+
1
b
w
(b
w
w
(p
w
+
w
g))
+
1
b
o
(b
o
o
(p
o
+
o
g)) + (1 S
o
) v
s
=
q
w
b
w
+
(1 ) q
o
b
o
(2.88)
We can observe that Eq. (2.88) has a similar form to the pressure equation identied
in Peaceman (1977) and Aziz & Settari (1979), except a new solid coupling term of
the form of (1 S
o
) v
s
. Because solid movement is very small compared with
uid movement, the eect of the solid coupling term should be small for most cases.
In general, Eq. (2.88) is of parabolic form.
Next, we will derive the saturation equation.
2.3.2 Saturation Equation - Hyperbolic Form
Darcys law (Eq. 2.45) for the water-oil system is
v
ws
=
w
k (p
w
+
w
g) (2.89a)
v
os
=
o
k (p
o
+
o
g) (2.89b)
Subtracting
w
Eq. (2.89b) from
o
Eq. (2.89a), yields:
o
v
ws
w
v
os
=
w
o
k (P
c
+ (
w
o
)g) (2.90)
The total uid velocity is v
t
= v
ws
+v
os
, therefore Eq. (2.90) becomes
(
o
+
w
)v
ws
=
w
v
t
+
w
o
k (P
c
+ (
w
o
)g) (2.91)
v
ws
can be deduced from Eq. (2.91) as
v
ws
= f
w
[v
t
+
o
_
P
c
+ (
w
o
)g
_
] (2.92)
where
o
=
o
k, and the water fractional ow is dened as
f
w
=

w
o
+
w
(2.93)
Substituting Eq. (2.92) in Eq. (2.75a), we have
d
dt
(S
w
b
w
) +
_
b
w
f
w
[v
t
+
o
_
P
c
+ (
w
o
)g
_
]
_
+ S
w
b
w
v
s
= q
w
(2.94)
Applying the chain rules on Eq. (2.94), yields:
d
dt
(S
w
b
w
) + b
w
f
w
v
t
+v
t
(b
w
f
w
) + S
w
b
w
v
s
+ [b
w
f
w
_
P
c
+ (
w
o
)g
_
] = q
w
(2.95)
With gravity and capillary pressure being neglected, the saturation equation has a
hyperbolic form.
Eq. 2.72, 2.95 and 2.88 form a complete set of equations for water-oil-solid system.
Chapter 3
The Saddle Point Problem and
Numerical Stability
Stability, convergence and accuracy issues are not commonly discussed in engineering
literatures involving coupled approaches. In their early papers about consolidation
problems, Vermeer & Verruijt (1981) investigated the phenomenon of intensied pore
pressure oscillations when the time steps of the nite element method were reduced.
They derived a lower bound of time steps for consolidation problems with saturated
uids. Murad & Loula (1992) explained the real cause of the oscillating pore pressure.
They showed that the pore pressure oscillations arise from an unstable approximation
of the incompressibility constraint in the initial condition, but the oscillations decay in
time. Bevillon and Masson (Bevillon & Masson 2000) proposed a staggered splitting
coupling scheme, and proved its unconditional stability. However they did not address
the phenomenon of intensied pore pressure oscillations when the time steps of the
nite element method are reduced.
In this chapter, we start with an introduction of the saddle point problem, and
the stability condition attached to it. Then we will describe two types of saddle point
problems embedded in the system of coupled geomechanics and multiphase ow,
followed by a description of the possible pressure oscillations that could be observed
in simulations of large scale reservoir ow.
39
40 CHAPTER 3. SADDLE POINT PROBLEM AND NUMERICAL STABILITY
3.1 Description of Saddle-Point Problem
We start with the steady Stokes problem with Dirichlet conditions as an example to
describe the saddle point problem. The problem is to nd the velocity-pressure pair
(v, p) for a uid of viscosity satisfying
2
v +p = f (3.1a)
v = 0 (3.1b)
Dening the weighting functions for v and p as w and q respectively, where v, w
J and p, q Q, the variational statement (Problem (A)) is: Find the solution (v,
p) satisfying the prescribed homogeneous conditions, such that
w
T
vd
_
wpd =
_
w
T
f d (3.2)
_
q vd = 0 (3.3)
The variational problem can also be obtained directly from the stationary condition
for the energy form
L(v, p) =
1
2
a(v, v) + b(v, p) (v, f ) (3.4)
where
a(v, v) =
_
v
T
vd
b(v, p) =
_
p vd (v, f ) =
_
v
T
f d
Every solution (v, p) of Problem (A) must satisfy the saddle point property
L(v, q) L(v, p) L(w, p) (3.5)
The solution (v, p) denes a saddle point of the energy form. Its characteristics are
3.1. DESCRIPTION OF SADDLE-POINT PROBLEM 41
that a xed v and varying q Q, L(v, p) gives a local maximum; and a xed p and
varying w J, L(v, p) gives a local minimum.
With the velocity-pressure pair (v
h
, p
h
) in the nite dimensional subspace, the
discrete equations are of the form
_
A B
B
T
0
__
v
h
p
h
_
=
_
f
0
_
(3.6)
We can use a simple example to demonstrate why this is a saddle point problem.
Assume a scalar version of Eq. (3.6) with no source/sink terms
_
A B
B 0
__
x
y
_
=
_
0
0
_
(3.7)
The problem is to nd a stationary value of
_
x y
_
_
A B
B 0
__
x
y
_
(3.8)
or to nd the stationary point x, y for
L(x, y) = A(x +
B
A
y)
2
B
2
A
y
2
(3.9)
With a coordinate transformation
x = x +
B
A
y (3.10a)
y = y (3.10b)
Eq. (3.9) has the saddle form given by
L(x, y) = L( x, y) = A x
2
B
2
A
y
2
(3.11)
Fig. 3.1 shows the saddle prole for the function L( x, y) in Eq. (3.11) when A =
1, B = 1. It is shown in Fig. 3.1 that L( x, y) decreases with increasing [ y[ if x is
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
x
x
2
y
2
y
Figure 3.1: Saddle shape
xed, and L( x, y) increases with increasing [ x[ if y is xed.
In our development of stabilized numerical methods, we will try to convert the
saddle point problem to a parabolic problem in the discretized space. In this way, a
stationary point of its energy form can be obtained easily. The stabilized approach
will be introduced in the next chapter. Parabolic systems have the matrix form of
_
A B
B E
__
x
y
_
= 0 (3.12)
By similar arrangement as in Eq. (3.8), we have
L(x, y) = A(x +
B
A
y)
2
+ (E
B
2
A
)y
2
(3.13)
With the same transformation as Eq. (3.10), it is obvious that the system is parabolic
if A > 0 and E >
B
2
A
. Fig. 3.2 shows L( x, y) with A = 1, B = 1 and E = 2.
3.2. THE SADDLE POINT PROBLEM IN CONSOLIDATION 43
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
1
0.5
0
0.5
1
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
x
x
2
+ y
2
y
Figure 3.2: Parabolic shape
So far, we have studied the saddle point problem by analyzing its energy form.
The details on candidate elements with variable combinations of velocity and pressure
interpolations can be found in Section 4.3 of Hughes (1987) and Zienkiewicz et al.
(1986).
3.2 The Saddle Point Problem in Consolidation
Galerkin nite element solutions for consolidation problems often exhibit pressure os-
cillations, especially with equal orders of interpolation for displacement and pressure
(Murad & Loula 1992, Murad & Loula 1994). To achieve stability, dierent orders of
interpolation are often introduced, however the use of lower order pressure interpola-
tion will lead to the lowering of the solution accuracy. At t = 0, the elasticity problem
is incompressible, so the variational formulation must satisfy the B-B condition. Typ-
ically, this means the displacement interpolation must be one order higher than the
pressure interpolation (Hughes 1987, Zienkiewicz et al. 1986). Pressure oscillations
will also occur when the permeability is low.
The example problem discussed in Section 2.2.1 can be represented as follows:
c
f
p
t
+ v +
u
t
= q (3.14a)
1
v +p =
f
g (3.14b)

p =
r
g (3.14c)
with the boundary conditions given by
v n = 0 on (3.15a)
u = u on
u
(3.15b)
n = h on
h
(3.15c)
where = k/. There are two types of time-dependent saddle point problems
embedded in this system, which fall into the category of a mixed formulation. The
rst one is the pressure/displacement formulation in the consolidation problem at
initial time
u = 0 (3.16a)

p =
r
g (3.16b)
Eq. (3.16) is very similar to the incompressible Stokes problem (Eq. (3.1)). Instead
of velocity v in Eq. (3.1), we have displacement u in Eq. (3.16). The second saddle
point problem is the pressure/velocity formulation in the Darcy ow problem
v = 0 (3.17a)
1
v +p = g (3.17b)
The matrix form of the coupled system using pressure and displacement as primary
3.3. CONSOLIDATION WITH SLIGHTLY COMPRESSIBLE FLUID 45
variables is
_
K Q
Q
T
0
__
u
p
_
=
_
f
g
_
(3.18)
and the matrix form using pressure, displacement and velocity as primary variables
is
_
_
K 0 Q
0 N R
Q
T
R
T
0
_
_
_
_
u
v
p
_
_
=
_
_
f
l
g
_
_
(3.19)
Eq. (3.18) and (3.19) all have the saddle properties built in, as discussed in Section
3.1.
3.3 Consolidation Problem with Slightly Compress-
ible Fluid
3.3.1 Revisit Terzaghis Problem
For the discretization method in time, there is an interpolation factor (Aziz 1997).
When is equal to 1, it is called backward time interpolation, which is unconditionally
stable. However oscillations may be encountered at early time with respect to the
dimensionless time c
v
t/h
2
, as shown in Fig. 3.3 for = 1. The numerical errors decay
with time and the numerical solution converges to the exact solution at later time
(c
v
t/h
2
= 0.4). Vermeer & Verruijt (1981) derived a lower limit for the time step for
one-dimensional consolidation of a homogeneous elastic porous medium,
t
1
6
(h)
2
c
v
(3.20)
where c
v
is dened in Eq. (2.65) and h is the mesh size. In most numerical calcu-
lations, accuracy is usually increased with smaller time steps, whereas this is not the
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

z
/
h
p/p
0
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.0001
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.4
Numerical
Analytical
Figure 3.3: Pressure oscillations in Terzaghis problem
case if the lower bound condition is not satised for consolidation problems.
3.3.2 Reason for Instability
The stability and convergence analysis of nite element approximations of consoli-
dation equations are discussed by Murad & Loula (1992, 1994). They analyzed the
nature of the variational problem associated with Biots equations for dierent stages
of the consolidation process. The nature of the problem changes from a saddle-point
problem to a Poisson problem at later times. The numerical errors in the initial data
due to unstable approximations will be damped by the diusion term p. For
suciently large time steps, due to the exponential decay of errors, the inuence of
the initial data becomes small and optimal rates of convergence are achieved.
3.4. LARGE SCALE RESERVOIR PROBLEMS 47
3.4 Possible Pressure Oscillations in Large Scale
Reservoir Problems
For large scale reservoir problems, heterogeneity becomes a very important feature.
The permeability variations can be very large, and low permeability shales often exist.
If the uid is slightly compressible, and unstable numerical approximations are used,
the numerical errors obtained at early time will not be damped out in numerical
blocks with very low permeability. The pressure oscillations may exist for a long
duration, and might even be amplied, which can lead to the non-convergence of
Newton-Raphson solvers.
In summary, the possible causes of pressure oscillations are
1. reservoir blocks with low uid compressibility at initial time, or
2. reservoir blocks with low uid compressibility and low permeability.
Chapter 4
Finite Element Formulation
In this chapter, we will introduce the concept of stabilized nite element methods,
then present the design of such methods for the coupled geomechanics and uid
system being considered. In order to demonstrate the role of stabilization, we will
discuss the single phase consolidation problem in detail, and lay out the formulations
for multiphase problems. The framework of coupling geomechanics and two phase
ow will be described in the next chapters.
In our approach to solve coupled geomechanics and uid ow problems, we take
two stabilized approaches: The rst one is the stabilized pressure-displacement for-
mulation, and the second is the stabilized pressure-velocity-displacement formulation.
Both of these aim to treat the pressure oscillation problem mentioned in the previous
chapter, while the pressure-velocity-displacement formulation oers more accurate
uid velocities.
Before explaining the stabilized approaches in detail, we will rst review some
concepts in functional analysis and introduce the notation to be used (Hughes 1987).
Next, we will briey introduce stabilized methods in abstract notation, then state
the space-time approach with a discontinuous Galerkin method in time, which can
be incorporated with stabilized approaches while maintaining good stability in time.
49
50 CHAPTER 4. FINITE ELEMENT FORMULATION
4.1 Notations in Functional Analysis
4.1.1 Inner Products
The space of weighting function 1 is dened as a closed linear space. An inner product
dened on a linear space 1 is denoted by (, ). For example, for v, w 1,
(v, w) =
_
vwd (4.1)
where is the region of interest. An inner product has the following properties
(Hughes 1987):
1. Symmetry
(v, w) = (w, v) (4.2)
2. Bilinearity
(c
1
v
1
+ c
2
v
2
, w) = c
1
(v
1
, w) + c
2
(v
2
, w) (4.3)
(v, c
1
w
1
+ c
2
w
2
) = c
1
(v, w
1
) + c
2
(v, w
2
) (4.4)
where c
1
, c
2
are constants.
3. Positive-deniteness
(v, v) 0, and (v, v) = 0 if and only if v = 0 (4.5)
4.1.2 Bilinear Products
Bilinear product is a wider concept than inner product, because bilinear product may
not possess the properties of symmetry and positive-deniteness (Hughes 1987). For
example, a bilinear product is dened as b(w, ) =
_
L
0
w
,x
dx. For homogeneous
4.2. STABILIZED FINITE ELEMENT METHOD 51
boundary conditions, meaning w[
= 0, integration by parts leads to

b(w, ) =
_
L
0
w
x
dx + (w, )[
L
0
= b(, w) + 0
= b(, w) (4.6)
Therefore b(w, ) is skew-symmetric, instead of symmetric. To simplify the notation,
we will use (, ) to denote bilinear products later in the thesis, and use B(, ) = L()
to represent the overall variational form, where B(, ) is a summation of bilinear
products.
4.1.3 Hilbert Space
The simplest Hilbert space is L
2
, the space of square-integrable functions. The natural
norm of L
2
space is (Hughes 1987)
|v| = (v, v)
1/2
=
__
L
0
v
2
dx
_
1/2
(4.7)
H
1
is the space of L
2
functions with L
2
derivatives, which means its functions are
square-integrable, and the functions derivatives are also square-integrable.
4.2 Stabilized Finite Element Method
The Galerkin method possesses poor stability for some problems, such as advection-
dominated ow problems and incompressible Stokes problems. Stabilized nite ele-
ment methods have been developed since the late 1970s to overcome the drawbacks in
the Galerkin formulation. The concept of a stabilized method is to append weighted
residual terms in an integral form to the standard Galerkin formulation over the
interior of each element. The added terms are in the form of residuals of the Euler-
Lagrange equations of the boundary-value problem. The consistency of the stabilized
formulation is guaranteed by construction, because the consistency emanates from
the condition that the weak form is satised if the discrete solution is replaced by
the exact solution. To pave the way for elaborating the stabilized methods for the
coupled system, we briey summarize the stabilization concept and weighted residual
method. Further details can be found in Hughes et al. (1994).
To consider the general concept of a stabilized method, let us use abstract notation
for general problems. The boundary-value problem in domain consists of nding a
function u, such that for a given function f, the following equation is satised,
Lu = f on (4.8)
For example, for the steady advection-diusion problem, L is dened as
L = a
With the weighting function w, the Galerkin variational form of Eq. (4.8) is
a(w, u) = (w, f) (4.9)
The idea of a stabilized method is to add a weighted residual term to the bilinear
form a(w, u), so that the stability is increased while consistency is preserved. The
stabilized methods can be written in the form
a(w
h
, u
h
) + (Lw
h
, (Lu f))
= (w
h
, f) (4.10)
where

denotes element interiors, and u
h
and w
h
are nite-dimensional approxi-
mations of u and w, respectively. L is a dierential operator, and examples for the
advective-diusive model are:
L = +L GLS (Hughes et al. 1989) (4.11)
L = +L
adv
SUPG (Brooks & Hughes 1982) (4.12)
L = L
(Franca et al. 1992) (4.13)

4.3. FULLY-DISCRETE SPACE-TIME APPROACH 53
where L
is the adjoint of L. The following table compares L
with L
L L
source I I
rst-order a a
second-order -
The stabilizer of Eq. (4.13) can work on general boundary value problems with various
dierential operators. The algebraic operator should keep the units of the weighted
residual term consistent with those of the equation. In the past, the exact magnitude
of was determined by analysis of model problems. To understand the origins of
stabilized methods, Hughes et al. (1994) used a multiscale approach to derive .
4.3 Fully-Discrete Space-Time Approach
In the previous section, we briey described the concept of the stabilized nite ele-
ment method for boundary value problems. For initial boundary value problems, the
traditional way of solving the time-dependent problem is the semi-discrete method.
The idea is to freeze time and develop a spatial variational formulation preserving
derivatives of time. This will result in a system of ordinary dierential equations
(ODE). Then, these ODE can be solved in various ways, such as generalized trape-
zoidal family methods, multi-step methods, etc. (Hughes 1987). Instead of using
the semi-discrete method, we can apply a fully-discrete space-time approach (Hughes
& Hulbert 1988), which employs a discontinuous Galerkin approximation in time.
This methods ability to obtain rigorous stability and convergence was discussed by
Hughes & Hulbert (1988) in the context of elastodynamics. Due to the weakly en-
forced continuity at each time node, the whole space-time domain can be divided into
a few time slabs. Fig. 4.1 shows a domain [0, L]]0, T[. There are two values, t
+
n
and t
n
, at each time node t
n
. Each time slab is dened by [0, L] [t
+
n
, t
n+1
], where
0 = t
0
< t
1
< < t
n+1
= T. The space-time equations can be solved in each time
slab in a time-stepping fashion.
x
0
L
t
-
0
t
t
+
0
t
-
1
t
+
1
t
-
n
t
+
n
.
.
.
.
.
t
+
n+1
Figure 4.1: Discontinuous Galerkin in Time
An abstract initial-value problem for unknown u can be written as
L
t
u u
t
+Lu = f on ]0, T[ (4.14)
Dene the nite dimensional subspace 1
h
as a weighting function space that is contin-
uous in space, but discontinuous across time slabs. Introducing the weight function w
h
corresponding to u
h
, the discontinuous-Galerkin-in-time discretization can be stated
as: Find u
h
, such that for all w
h
1
h
,
_
t
n+1
t
n
_
w
h
t
u
h
d + a(w
h
, u
h
)
_
dt +
_
w
h
(t
n+1
)u
h
(t
n+1
)d
=
_
t
n+1
t
n
(w
h
, f)ddt +
_
w
h
(t
+
n
)u
h
(t
n
)d
(4.15)
and
u
h
(t
0
) u
h
(x, t
0
) = u
0
(x) x
The space-time approach gives rise to a fully-discrete equation system on each
time slab, where the stabilized approaches can be naturally applied. With the choice
of space-time interpolation, the time integrator, such as generalized trapezoidal family
4.4. STABILIZED PRESSURE-DISPLACEMENT FORMULATION 55
methods and multi-step methods, can be avoided. Therefore, the space-time method
will be the base for later development.
4.4 Stabilized Pressure-Displacement Formulation
for Compaction and Single Phase Problem
The pressure-displacement equation system, equivalent to Eq. 3.14, is as follows:
c
f
p
t
+
_
(p
f
g)
_
+

t
u = q (4.16)

p =
r
g (4.17)
The initial boundary value problem consists of nding u = u(x, t) and p = p(x, t)
satisfying Eq. (4.16) and (4.17), and the prescribed boundary and initial conditions,
which can be expressed as
p(x, t) = p(x) x
f1
(4.18)
p n = 0 x
f2
(4.19)
u(x, t) = u(x) x
s1
(4.20)
n =

h x
s2
(4.21)
u(x, t = 0) = u
0
(x) x (4.22)
p(x, t = 0) = p
0
(x) x (4.23)
Let
| = u H
1
, u[
s1
= u
J = w H
1
, w[
s1
= 0
T = p H
1
, p[
f1
= p
Q = q H
1
, q[
f1
= 0
Dene the weighting functions of u and p as w and q respectively, with u |, p T,
w J and q Q. Denote the space time domain as ]0, T[, and

as ]0, T[
and use p and u to represent the partial time derivative of p and u respectively. The
Eulerian-Lagrangian form in space-time is
(q , c
f
p
k
p +
f
g + u q)
+ (w,
p
r
g)
+
_
q , (c
f
p)
0
+ (c
f
p)
0
(q , u
0
+ u
0
) = 0
(4.24)
Before proceeding further, we need to clarify some notation. We should recall that
indices i, j, k take on values 1, ... , n
sd
, where n
sd
is the number of spatial dimensions.
As a convention and a simplication of writing, vector notation is normally used. The
eective stress and strain tensors are written in the vector form as
=
11
,
22
,
33
,
23
,
13
,
12
T
(4.25)
(u) = u
1,1
, u
2,2
, u
3,3
, u
2,3
+ u
3,2
, u
1,3
+ u
3,1
, u
1,2
+ u
2,1
T
(4.26)
(w) = w
1,1
, w
2,2
, w
3,3
, w
2,3
+ w
3,2
, w
1,3
+ w
3,1
, w
1,2
+ w
2,1
T
(4.27)
According to Eq. (2.32) and (2.36), the stress-strain relationship for a linear isotropic
poroelastic solid skeleton can be written as (Hughes 1987)
= D (4.28)
D =
_
_
+ 2 0 0 0
+ 2 0 0 0
+ 2 0 0 0
0 0
Symmetric 0

_
_
(4.29)
Integrating (4.24) by parts yields
( q, c
f
p)
(q,

c
f
p)
( q, u)
+ (q,
k
p)
(q,
f
g)
(q, q)
_
(w), D(u)
_
+
_
(w), mp)
(w,
r
g)
+
_
q , (c
f
p)[
T
_
q , (c
f
p)[
0
+ (q , u[
T
)
(q , u[
0
)
+ (w,

h)
s2
= 0
(4.30)
with m = [1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]
T
. Then we discretize Eq. (4.30) in time, and assume u, p,
w and q are discontinuous across time slabs (i.e. x , t [t
+
n
t
n+1
]). If a piecewise
constant in time approximation for u, p, w, q is being applied, the above equation
can be reinterpreted as
+ t(q,
k
p)
t(q,
f
g)
t(q, q)
t
_
(w), D(u)
_
+ t
_
(w), mp)
t(w,
r
g)
+
_
q , (c
f
p)[
t
n+1
_
_
q , (c
f
p)[
t
n
_
(q , u[
t
n+1
)
(q , u[
t
n
)
+ t(w,

h)
s2
= 0
(4.31)
The Galerkin approximation takes a nite-dimensional subspace |
h
of | (|
h
|),
J
h
of J (J
h
J), Q
h
of Q(Q
h
Q) and T
h
of T (T
h
T). To simplify notation,
let
h
= |
h
T
h
, A
h
= J
h
Q
h
, V
h
= u
h
, p
h
and W
h
= w
h
, q
h
. Also since
the problem is piecewise constant in time, we can use t
n
and t
n+1
to represent time
related terms. The Galerkin formulation can be expressed as: Find V
h

h
, such
that, for all W
h
A
h
,
B(W
h
, V
h
) = L(W
h
) (4.32)
where
B(W
h
, V
h
) = + t(q
h
,
k
p
h
)
t
_
(w
h
), D(u
h
)
_
+ t
_
(w
h
), mp
h
_
+ (q
h
, c
f
p
h
)
+ (q
h
, u
h
)
(4.33)
L(W
h
) = + t(q
h
,
f
g)
+ t(q
h
, q)
t(w
h
,
r
g)
+
_
q
h
, (c
f
p
h
)[
t
n
_
+ (q
h
, u
h
[
t
n
)
t(w
h
,

h)
s2
(4.34)
and the solution V
h
is understood to represent time level t
n+1
. Consider a decompo-
sition of into non-overlapping element sub-domains (
e
, e = 1, 2, , n
el
), which
are dened as

=
n
el
e=1

e
. The discrete version of the stabilized form can be stated
as: Find V
h

h
, such that, for all W
h
A
h
,
B(W
h
, V
h
)
stab
= L(W
h
)
stab
(4.35)
where
B
stab
(W
h
, V
h
) = B(W
h
, V
h
) + (q
h
,
h
p
h
)
(4.36)
L
stab
(W
h
) = L(W
h
) + (q
h
,
r
g)
(4.37)
We choose the algebraic operator as
=
h
2
e
12
(4.38)
where is a scalar coecient and h
e
is the characteristic length of element
e
. The
resulting stabilized approximation can alternatively be written as follows:
a
h
(w
h
, u
h
) + b
h
(w
h
, p
h
) = f
h
(w
h
) (4.39)
a
h
(q
h
, u
h
) +

b
h
(q
h
, p
h
) =

f
h
(q
h
) (4.40)
where
a
h
(w
h
, u
h
) = +
_
(w
h
), D(u
h
)
_
b
h
(w
h
, p
h
) =
_
(w
h
), mp
h
_
a
h
(q
h
, u
h
) =(q
h
, u
h
)
(q
h
,
h
)
b
h
(q
h
, p
h
) = + t(q
h
,
k
p
h
)
+ (q
h
, c
f
p
h
)
+ (q
h
, p
h
)
f
h
(w
h
) =(w
h
,
r
g)
(w
h
,

h)
s2
f
h
(q
h
) = t(q
h
,
f
g)
+ t(q
h
, q)
+
_
q
h
, (c
f
p
h
)[
t
n
_
+ (q
h
, u
h
[
t
n
)
(q
h
,
r
g)
In terms of shape functions and nodal values, the expressions of u, p, w and q are
u
h
=
B
N
uB
u
B
w
h
=
A
N
uA
c
A
p
h
=
B
N
pB
p
B
q
h
=
A
N
pA
c
A
where u
B
and p
B
are nodal displacement and pressure respectively, and C
A
and c
A
are arbitrary constants. In matrix form, the problem can be stated as
_
K Q
Q
T
L M+S
__
u
p
_
=
_
F
H
_
(4.41)
The above notation is chosen such that, u is the vector of unknown nodal displace-
ments and p is the vector of nodal pressures, and L, S correspond to the stabilization
terms. The array denitions are
K = A
n
el
e=1
(k
e
); Q = A
n
el
e=1
(q
e
); M = A
n
el
e=1
(m
e
)
S = A
n
el
e=1
(s
e
); L = A
n
el
e=1
(l
e
)
F = A
n
el
e=1
(f
e
); H = A
n
el
e=1
(h
e
) (4.42)
where Adenotes the nite element assembly operator which assembles the element
contribution to the global matrix/vector. The element notations are dened as
k
e
= [k
e
ab
]; q
e
= [q
e
a
b
]; m
e
= [m
e
a
b
];
l
e
= [l
e
ab
]; s
e
= [s
e
a
b
]; f
e
= f
e
a
; h
e
= h
e
a
k
e
ab
= e
T
i
_
e
B
e
a
T
DB
e
b
d e
j
; q
e
a
b
=
_
e
N
a,i
N
b
d;
m
e
a
b
=
_
e
(tN
a,i
k
ij
N
b,j
+ N
a
c
f
N
b
)d; l
e
ab
= ( + )
_
e
E
e
a
T
C
e
b
d;
s
e
a
b
=
_
e
E
e
a
T
E
e
b
d; f
e
a
=
_
e
N
a
r
g
i
d
_
s2
N
a
h
i
d;
h
e
a
= t
_
e
E
e
a
T
f
gd + t
_
e
N
a
qd +
_
e
N
a
(c
f
p)(t
n
)d
_
e
N
a,i
N
b
d
_
e
E
e
a
T
r
gd
where
1 i, j n
sd
; 1 a, b n
en
; 1 a,
b n
en
in which
e
i
= the i-th Cartesian unit basis vector;
n
en
= the number of displacement element nodes;
n
en
= the number of pressure element nodes;
n
ed
= the number of displacements degree of freedom;
a, b = the local displacement element node number;
a,
b = the local pressure element node/equation number;

N
e
a
= shape function associated with displacement node a; and
N
e
a
= shape function associated with pressure node a.
In two- and three-dimensions, the arrays are given by
n
sd
= 2:
E
e
a
=
_
N
e
a,1
N
e
a,2
_
; C
e
b
=
_
N
b,11
+ N
b,22
N
b,12
N
b,12
N
b,22
+ N
b,11
_
;
B
e
a
=
_
_
N
e
a,1
0
0 N
e
a,2
N
e
a,2
N
e
a,1
_
_
; D =
_
_
+ 2 0
+ 2 0
0 0
_
_
n
sd
= 3:
C
e
b
=
_
_
N
b,11
+ (N
b,22
+ N
b,33
) N
b,12
N
b,31
N
b,12
N
b,22
+ (N
b,11
+ N
b,33
) N
b,23
N
b,31
N
b,23
N
b,33
+ (N
b,11
+ N
b,22
)
_
_
E
e
a
=
_
_
N
e
a,1
N
e
a,2
N
e
a,3
_
_
; B
e
a
=
_
_
N
e
a,1
0 0
0 N
e
a,2
0
0 0 N
e
a,3
0 N
a,3
N
a,2
N
a,3
0 N
a,1
N
e
a,2
N
e
a,1
0
_
_
;
=
+ 2
+
; =

+
4.5 Stabilized Pressure-Velocity-Displacement Method
for Compaction and Single Phase Problem
The mixed nite element method using Raviart-Thomas elements is widely used for
solving Darcy ow equations (Douglas 1980, Darlow et al. 1984). Raviart-Thomas
elements are a special type of elements, which require a particular pair of velocity and
pressure interpolations. The natural combination with equal order of interpolations
will produce pressure oscillations and violate the Babu ska-Brezzi stability condition.
Masud & Hughes (2002) developed a stabilized nite element formulation, which can
accommodate any interpolation of pressure and velocity, and achieve optimal conver-
gence for some elements. We continued development of this method and combined it
with the stress equation in the hope of eliminating the pressure oscillations in consol-
idation problems. We rst present the results and discussions of this stabilized nite
element for the Darcy ow problem, and then consider the consolidation problem.
4.5.1 Stabilized Pressure-Velocity Formulation
The equations are
v = q (4.43)
v =
k
(p + g) (4.44)
4.5. STABILIZED PRESSURE-VELOCITY-DISPLACEMENT 63
This boundary value problem consists of nding v = v(x) and p = p(x) satisfying
Eq. (4.43) and (4.44), and the boundary conditions are:
p(x) = g(x) x
p
(4.45)
v(x) n = 0 x
v
(4.46)
where g is a given function.
Let
1 = H
1
0
(div; )
v[v (L
2
())
n
sd
, v L
2
()
T = L
2
() '
p[p L
2
(),
_
p d = 0
Dene the weighting functions corresponding to v and p as w and q, respectively.
Then, with v 1, p T, w 1 and q T, the Eulerian-Lagrangian form is
(w, k
1
v +p + g)
+ (q, v q)
= 0 (4.47)
Integration by parts leads to the variational form, viz.,
(w, k
1
v)
( w, p)
+ (q, v)
= (w, g)
+ (q, q)
(4.48)
The classical Galerkin approximation takes a nite-dimensional subspace 1
h
of 1 and
T
h
of T, then w
h
1
h
and q
h
T
h
. To simplify the notation, let
h
= 1
h
T
h
,
V
h
= v
h
, p
h
and W
h
= w
h
, q
h
. The Galerkin formulation can then be stated as:
Find V
h

h
h

h
,
B(W
h
, V
h
) = L(W
h
) (4.49)
where
B(W
h
, V
h
) = (w
h
, k
1
v
h
)
( w
h
, p
h
)
+ (q
h
, v
h
)
(4.50)
L(W
h
) = (w
h
, g)
+ (q
h
, q)
(4.51)
This formula serves as the basis of the Galerkin nite element method and is con-
strained by the B-B condition. Only certain combinations of velocity and pressure
converge, for example, the velocity and pressure arrangement in Raviart-Thomas el-
ements.
The new stabilized method (Masud & Hughes 2002) is designed to circumvent the
B-B stability condition, therefore any combination of velocity and pressure is stable.
Let
Q = H
1
() ' p[p H
1
(),
_
p d = 0
Consider a decomposition of into non-overlapping elements. Let Q
h
Q, and
q
h
Q
h
. Dene Z
h
= 1
h
Q
h
. The discrete approximation can be stated as: Find
V
h
Z
h
h
Z
h
,
B
stab
(W
h
, V
h
) = L
stab
(W
h
) (4.52)
4.5. STABILIZED PRESSURE-VELOCITY-DISPLACEMENT 65
where
B
stab
(W
h
, V
h
) = B(W
h
, V
h
)
+
_
(k
1
w
h
+q
h
),
1
(k
1
v
h
+p
h
)
_
+ ( w
h
,
2
v
h
)
(4.53)
L
stab
(W) = L(W)
_
(k
1
w
h
+q
h
),
1
( g)
_
+ ( w
h
,
2
q)
(4.54)
The sign of the dierential operator on the residual follows the rule of Eq. (4.13).
We choose the algebraic operators
1
and
2
as
1
=
1
2
k
2
=
1
2
[k
1
[
2
where is the characteristic length of each element. The resulting stabilized approx-
imation can be written in bilinear form as follows:
a
h
(w
h
, v
h
) + b
h
(w
h
, p
h
) = f
h
(w
h
) (4.55)
a
h
(q
h
, v
h
) +

b
h
(q
h
, p
h
) =

f
h
(q
h
) (4.56)
where
a
h
(w
h
, v
h
) = (w
h
, k
1
v
h
)
+
n
el
e=1
(k
1
w
h
,
1
k
1
v
h
)
e
+
n
el
e=1
( w
h
,
2
v
h
)
e
b
h
(w
h
, p
h
) = ( w
h
, p
h
)
+
n
el
e=1
(k
1
w
h
,
1
p
h
)
e
f
h
(w
h
) =
n
el
e=1
(k
1
w
h
,
1
g)
e + ( w
h
,
2
q)
a
h
(q
h
, v
h
) = (q
h
, v
h
)
+
n
el
e=1
(q
h
,
1
k
1
v
h
)
b
h
(q
h
, p
h
) =
n
el
e=1
(q
h
,
1
p
h
)
f
h
(q
h
) =
n
el
e=1
(q
h
,
1
( g))
e
The nal matrix form can be easily obtained by substituting the element shape func-
tions in the discretized variational form.
4.5.2 Stabilized Pressure-Velocity-Displacement Formulation
c
f
p
t
+ v +
u
t
= q (4.57)
1
v +p =
f
g (4.58)
p =
r
g (4.59)
In this formulation, we include both of the stabilized methods mentioned in Section
4.4 and 4.5.1. The modied matrix form is
_
_
K 0 Q
0 N R
Q
T
L R M+S
1
+S
2
_
_
_
_
u
v
p
_
_
=
_
_
F
G
H
_
_
(4.60)
The notation is chosen such that u is the vector of unknown nodal displacements, v
is the vector of unknown nodal velocities, p is the vector of nodal pressures, and L,
S
1
correspond to the stabilization terms from the pressure-displacement formulation
and S
2
is the stabilization from the pressure-velocity formulation.
4.5.3 Local Conservation
In simulating ow in porous media by Darcys law, the property of local mass conser-
vation is very important. Hughes et al. (2000) recently stated that continuous nite
element methods are locally conservative if the ux is calculated in a correct way.
However this local conservation property can only be maintained by post-processing
for continuous nite elements. This adds another layer of complexity. Discontinu-
ous methods have started to be established in a variety of areas and they can also
be adapted into this stabilized nite element method to directly achieve local mass
conservation.
The following derivation illustrates that discontinuous pressure can achieve local
conservation. Multiplying Eq. (4.43) by the discontinuous weight function q and
integrating by parts, we have
q vd +
_
qn vd =
_
q qd (4.61)
For discontinuous pressure, the weighting function q can take on the value 1 on each
element, and be identically zero elsewhere. Therefore q is zero over the element,
hence we have satised the condition of local mass conservation
_
q n vd =
_
q qd (4.62)
This stabilized nite element method for Darcy ow is also convergent. But as
suggested by Franca et al. (1993), the order of velocity elements should be at least
quadratic.
4.6 Stabilized Pressure-Displacement Formulation
for Compaction and Multiphase Problem
The pressure equation in a water-oil system has the form of Eq. (2.88) and the force
balance equation has the form of Eq. (2.72). The nite element discretization follows
the same steps as those for the compaction and single phase problems. Use p
h
to
denote p
h
o
, and P
h
c
= p
h
o
p
h
w
. The nal bilinear and linear forms are as follows:
B(W
h
, V
h
) =t
_
(w
h
), D(u
h
)
_
+ t
_
(w
h
), m(p
h
S
h
w
P
h
c
)
_
+ t
_
q
h
,
w
(p
h
P
h
c

w
g)
_
+ (q
h
, c
p
h
)
+ t
_
q
h
, (1 )
o
(p
h
o
g)
_
+ (q
h
, (1 S
o
) u
h
)
(4.63)
t
_
q
h
, c
w
(p
h
P
h
c
)
w
(p
h
P
h
c

w
g)
_
t
_
q
h
, c
o
(1 )p
h

o
(p
h
o
g)
_
L(W
h
) = t
_
q
h
,
q
w
b
w
+
(1 ) q
o
b
o
_
t(w
h
,
r
g)
+
_
q
h
, (c
p
h
)[
t
n
_
+ (q
h
, (1 S
o
) u
h
[
t
n
)
t(w
h
,

h)
s2
(4.64)
The stabilized counterpart is
B
stab
(W
h
, V
h
) = B(W
h
, V
h
) +
_
q
h
,
h
(p
h
S
h
w
P
h
c
)
_
(4.65)
L
stab
(W
h
) = L(W
h
) + (q
h
,
r
g)
(4.66)
with c
= S
w
c
w
+ (1 )S
o
c
o
. These are the discrete forms of pressure-displacement
formulation that we will use to solve the force balance equations and the pressure
equation.
Chapter 5
Numerical Experiments of
Consolidation Problem
Here we can dene the consolidation problem as the response of a porous medium
domain containing a single phase uid, under the inuence of an external load with no
internal sinks or sources. Terzaghis problem is a typical example of a consolidation
problem. Some numerical experiments are presented here to validate and examine
the performance of stabilized nite element methods.
5.1 Pressure-Displacement Formulation for
Terzaghis Problem
In the following tests, we use a two-dimensional code to simulate a one-dimensional
Terzaghis problem, where a uniform load is applied at the top and the displacements
at the two sides and the bottom are not allowed. Equal order bilinear and quadratic
interpolations are used for pressure and displacement.
5.1.1 Bilinear Elements
The pressure and displacement variables are placed on the nodes of a triangular or
quadrilateral element, as shown in Fig. 5.1 Due to the nature of the saddle point
69
70 CHAPTER 5. NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS OF CONSOLIDATION
T1
Q1
pressure
displacement
Figure 5.1: Bilinear elements
behavior associated with the consolidation problem, a developers natural selection
of equal order interpolations will lead to oscillations in pressure. Fig. 5.2 shows
a comparison of the pressure prole for Terzaghis problem in the vertical direction
obtained through the analytical solution, the Galerkin formulation (non-stabilized nu-
merical scheme) and the stabilized formulation using quadrilateral elements. While
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

z
/
h
p/p
0
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.0001
Numerical: Nonstabilized
Numerical: Stabilized
Analytical
Figure 5.2: Comparison of stabilized and non-stabilized pressure proles at early time
the non-stabilized method yields a pressure prole that shows a large deviation from
the analytical solution, the pressure obtained by the stabilized method matches the
5.1. PRESSURE-DISPLACEMENT FORM 71
analytical solution. Stabilized terms in Eq. (4.65) clearly improve the pressure sta-
bility in Terzaghis problem.
Although the stabilized solution is very good at early times, there is a pitfall in the
use of bilinear elements. The stabilization part of Eq. (4.65) includes a second order
term with respect to displacement, which implies that L in Eq. (4.41) is almost zero.
This means that the stabilization term for bilinear elements is not strictly a weighted
residual term, so the requirement of consistency is violated. This results in wrong
results at later times. Fig. 5.3 shows that the stabilized results deviate dramatically
from the analytical results, and the oscillations in the non-stabilized scheme are no
longer evident. This makes the application of bilinear elements in the stabilized
formulation impractical. Note also that the oscillations in the non-stabilized scheme
are no longer evident.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

z
/
h
p/p
0
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.015
Analytical
Figure 5.3: Comparison of stabilized and non-stabilized pressure proles at later time
To maintain the residual structure for bilinear elements, we slightly modify the
formulation by moving the second-order part in Eq. (4.65) to the right-hand side:
B
stab
(W
h
, V
h
) = B(W
h
, V
h
) + (q
h
, p
h
)
(5.1)
L
stab
(W
h
) = L(W
h
) + (q
h
,
r
g)
+ (q
h
,
h
)
(5.2)
If we can calculate bilinear nodal stress or bilinear stress at Gaussian points accurately,
we can compensate for the error. We rst try the typical way of calculating nodal
stress by averaging the piecewise constant element centered stresses. This averaging
method is described in the Appendix A.1. However this method smooths out the
stress, and cannot provide the correct residual compensation. As we can see from Fig.
5.4, the stress starts to oscillate at the second time step. The success of maintaining
1 0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 0.1
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2
z
/
h

x
, timestep = 1

y
, timestep = 1

x
, timestep = 2

y
, timestep = 2
Figure 5.4: Oscillating stress for averaging stress approach
the residual structure lies in the accuracy of the bilinear stress calculation. The
next method gives more precise results. We rst calculate the stress on the boundary
elements, where the stress on the boundary nodes is precisely the prescribed boundary
condition. Then we propagate the stress value from the boundary layer to inside of
the domain element by element. The details are described in Appendix A.2. In this
way, the residual structure is maintained. As we can see from Fig. 5.5, the stabilized
pressure prole matches perfectly with the analytical solution at both early and late
times.
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

z
/
h
p/p
0
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.0002
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.04
Analytical
Figure 5.5: Pressure prole using modied stabilization
5.1.2 Quadratic Elements
We next examine the stabilized method with quadratic elements. The placement
of pressure and displacement variables in a triangular or quadrilateral element is
shown in Fig. 5.6. Due to the second-order nature of quadratic elements, the term
L in Eq. (4.41) will not be zero, and it is accurately calculated. With the residual
structure in weighted residual form, we avoid the consistency problem observed with
the bilinear elements, and at the same time prevent pressure oscillations. Fig. 5.7
compares the stabilized and non-stabilized solutions. Fig. 5.8 shows good consistency
of the stabilized method with quadratic elements. In theory, there is an optimized
factor, where the error in pressure is of the same order as that in displacements.
is suggested to be 1 for the Stokes problem (Hughes et al. 1986). However for
quadratic elements, we performed a few experiments, and found = 1/10 to be the
optimal value. When 1/10, the solution is not fully stabilized. When 1/10,
T2
Q2
pressure
displacement
Figure 5.6: Quadratic elements
0 0.5 1 1.5
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

z
/
h
p/p
0
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.00001
Numerical: Stabilized, = 1
Numerical: Stabilized, = 0.1
Analytical
Figure 5.7: Comparison of stabilized and non-stabilized pressure proles at early time
using quadratic elements
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

z
/
h
p/p
0
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.01
Analytical
Figure 5.8: Good consistency for stabilized method by using quadratic elements
stabilization is achieved while consistency is also maintained, but the solution has a
small oscillation at the two ends (see the solution for = 1 in Fig. 5.7). Fortunately
this oscillation is not amplied as increases.
5.1.3 Three-Dimensional Example
Fig. 5.9 shows the conguration of a three-dimensional example. It is a box-shaped
reservoir with xed displacements at the bottom and fully drained ow (zero pressure)
at all boundaries. 11115 grid is used. A constant pressure of p
0
acts on the center
block at the top surface. Fig. 5.10 shows the pressure response by stabilized and
non-stabilized (Galerkin) methods using bilinear hexahedral elements. The stabilized
method uses the same technique as that used for the Terzaghi problem in Section
5.1.1. We can clearly see in Fig. 5.10 that pressure oscillations occur in the x-, y-
and z- directions with Galerkin methods, and the oscillations are prevented by the
stabilized method.
y
z
x
NX=11
NY=11
NZ=5
Fully drained at all boundaries
Fixed displacement at bottom
p
0
Figure 5.9: Three-dimensional example
5.2 Pressure-Velocity-Displacement Formulation for
Consolidation
Another way to solve the consolidation problem is to use a pressure-velocity-displacement
formulation, where pressure, velocity and displacement are the primary variables. The
reason to have velocity as one of the primary variables is to improve the accuracy
in the ux calculation. The mixed nite element method using Raviart-Thomas ele-
ments is normally used to solve Eq. (4.43) and (4.44). Here we are going to examine
the newly developed stabilized method (Masud & Hughes 2002) for the Darcy ow
problem. This formulation ts into the structure of the saddle point problem and
its stabilization technique was developed to circumvent the B-B condition. After the
evaluation of the pressure-velocity formulation for the ow problem, we will examine
its potential use for solving the consolidation problems, that is, the pressure-velocity-
displacement formulation.
5.2.1 Pressure-Velocity Formulation for Darcy Flow
Continuous Elements
The elements used here are the same as those in Fig. 5.1, except we are solving
pressure and velocity instead of pressure and displacement. As discussed previously, in
5.2. PRESSURE-VELOCITY-DISPLACEMENT FORM 77
2
4
6
8
10
12
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
0.2
x
y
Top, nonstabilized

p
/
p
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
5
x 10
3
x
y
Middle, nonstabilized

p
/
p
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
0.1
x
y
Bottom, nonstabilized

p
/
p
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
0.05
0.1
x
y
Top, stabilized

p
/
p
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
0.05
0.1
x
y
Middle, stabilized

p
/
p
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
2
4
6
8
10
12
0
0.05
0.1
x
y
Bottom, stabilized

p
/
p
0
Figure 5.10: Pressure eld for three-dimensional case
the absence of stabilization, equal order interpolation of pressure and velocity will lead
to instability. With the stabilized method, the oscillations should be prevented. The
following example is a quarter of a ve spot, the pressure and velocity distributions
are shown in Fig. 5.11 and 5.12. The values in this example are dimensionless.
0
5
10
15
20
0
5
10
15
20
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
X
Y
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e
Figure 5.11: Pressure prole by continuous bilinear elements
Masud & Hughes (2002) show similar smooth pressure elds.
Continuous Velocity Discontinuous Pressure
Mass conservation is a very important requirement in reservoir simulation. One
method to conserve mass using the stabilized method for Darcys problem is to make
the pressure variable discontinuous (Masud & Hughes 2002). Possible elements are
described in Fig. 5.13. We now examine the mass conservation properties for both
continuous and discontinuous pressure methods, where velocities are always continu-
ous. The rst test case is a homogeneous one layer medium with ow in the x-direction
and no ow boundaries. A sink and source of constant ow rate are located at the
two ends. This is essentially a one-dimensional ow problem. The ow velocity v
x
along the x-direction by continuous and discontinuous pressure elements is shown in
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
X
Y
Prod
Inj
Figure 5.12: Velocity by continuous bilinear elements
QV2DP0
pressure
velocity
QV2DP1
Figure 5.13: Quadratic velocity discontinuous pressure elements
the left part of Fig. 5.14, and v
x
along the y-direction at x = 3 is shown in the
right part of Fig. 5.14. QV1P1 refers to continuous bilinear pressure and velocity
elements, QV2DP0 refers to piecewise constant pressure and quadratic velocity ele-
ments, and QV2DP1 refers to bilinear discontinuous pressure and quadratic velocity
elements. The placement of pressure and velocity variables for the QV2DP0 and
QV2DP1 elements is described in Fig 5.13. In this case there are 4 4 elements with
1 2 3 4 5
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
1
x
v
x
QV1P1
QV2DP0
QV2DP1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
y
v
x
at x = 3
QV1P1
QV2DP0
QV2DP1
Figure 5.14: Velocity prole for homogeneous media
dimensionless element size of 1. Due to the no ow boundary, the velocity at the two
ends in the x-direction are zero, while the exact velocity between the sink and source
is designed to be 1 analytically.
We can see from the left part of Fig. 5.14 that the continuous QV1P1 elements
do not conserve mass, because the v
x
in the three middle nodes in the x-direction are
not equal. On the other hand, the use of discontinuous pressure elements in QV2DP0
and QV2DP1 elements lead to exact nodal values and the mass is conserved. For
the QV2DP0 elements, the quadratic node inside an element does not have the exact
value, but with increased order for the pressure variable in the QV2DP1 element, the
inner node value is also exact. The right part of Fig. 5.14 shows that a constant
velocity prole is achieved over the cross-section, but the QV1P1 element leads to
incorrect velocity values because the use of continuous pressure element does not
guarantee local mass conservation.
Next, we will examine the application of the pressure-velocity formulation to het-
erogeneous media. Fig. 5.15 shows a layered system with a constant pressure dif-
ference between the two ends. The velocity prole in the z-direction is shown in
100md
500md
50md
300md
800md
X
Z
Figure 5.15: Layer system
Fig. 5.16. Because velocity is continuous at nodes, tangential velocity will also be
continuous at each node. This violates the physics of Darcy ow, because dierent
permeability in adjacent elements will lead to tangential discontinuities in velocity.
That is why we see an oscillating velocity prole in the left part of Fig. 5.16. If we
look at the right part of Fig. 5.16, the velocity solution using discontinuous pres-
sure elements (QV2DP0 and QV2DP1) is a smooth approximation of the analytical
solution if we only retain the solution for the corner nodes of the elements. This
illustrates that the local conservation property using discontinuous pressure elements
can improve the results. For QV2DP1 case, the velocity of the middle nodes within
each layer is exact. With this, we can see the advantages and disadvantages of the
stabilized formulation for the Darcy ow problem. The stabilized formulation using
0 10 20 30
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Z
v
x
All Nodes
QV1P1
QV2DP0
QV2DP1
0 10 20 30
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Z
v
x
Corner Nodes
Analytical
QV2DP0
QV2DP1
Figure 5.16: Velocity prole for layer system
standard discontinuous and continuous nite elements can circumvent the B-B con-
dition, but at the cost of enforcing continuity of tangential velocity, which leads to
smoothed velocity proles.
Discontinuous Velocity and Pressure
One possible solution to have discontinuity in the tangential velocity might be to
have both velocity and pressure discontinuous from element to element. Consistency
requires continuity of normal velocity over element boundaries. We can add stabi-
lization terms to satisfy continuity while enhancing stability. This will lead to more
complex programming than for classical nite element methods, and we do not ad-
dress this topic in this thesis. However, it has the potential to address the diculties
arising in Darcy ow problems.
5.2.2 Pressure-Velocity-Displacement Formulation for
Terzaghis Problem
The results using the pressure-velocity-displacement formulation extended to the con-
solidation problem are shown in Fig 5.17. Because of the limitation of the pressure-
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
1.4
1.6
1.8
2

z
/
h
p/p
0
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.0002
c
v
t/h
2
= 0.04
Analytical
Figure 5.17: Pressure prole by pressure-velocity-displacement formulation
velocity stabilized formulation for heterogeneous media, we will not continue its de-
velopment into coupled geomechanics and multiphase ow problem. Rather, the
pressure-displacement formulation will be developed into a framework with coupled
geomechanics and multiphase ow. However, this does not mean that it is impos-
sible to have velocity as a separate primary variable. This issue is open for future
investigation.
In summary, we have presented two kind of formulations: the pressure-displacement
formulation and the pressure-velocity-displacement formulation. Both showed ad-
vantages in circumventing the B-B condition and eliminating pressure oscillations at
early times in consolidation problems. The pressure-displacement formulation will
be the main method for further development. It adds a weighted residual term to
the Galerkin form. The residual we use is the residual of the force balance equation
because of its simplicity. This formulation will later be used to solve in a fully coupled
fashion with the saturation equation for coupled geomechanics and multiphase ow
models.
Chapter 6
Coupled Geomechanics and
Multiphase Flow
Settari & Walters (1999) summarized dierent levels of coupling in coupled geome-
chanics and multiphase ow systems. We are going to review the existing methods
discussed by Settari & Walters (1999), then discuss the fully coupled method we
developed which incorporates the stabilized methods described in Chapter 4.
6.1 Dierent Levels of Coupling
The general system of equations was summarized in Chapter 3. We consider the
water-oil system as our base system. Adopting similar notation to that used by
Settari & Walters (1999), the matrix system can be written in Newton-Raphson form
after the discretization in space and time is applied:
_
K L
L
T
E
_
_
u
P
_
+1
=
_
R
s
R
f
_
(6.1)
where is the Newton-Raphson iteration number, u
+1
= u
+1
u
is the displace-
ment increment over iteration + 1, P
+1
= P
+1
P
is the increment of ow
unknowns (i.e., pressures, saturations). In Eq. (6.1), K is the stiness matrix, E
85
86 CHAPTER 6. COUPLED GEOMECHANICS AND MULTIPHASE FLOW
is the ow matrix, L is the coupling matrix to ow unknowns in the force balance
equations, and

L is the coupling matrix to displacements in the ow equations. If we
assume the average pore pressure in the force balance equation does not depend on
saturation, we can write L =
L (Lewis & Schreer 1998, Settari & Walters 1999).

This is because the same operator is involved in both of the coupling terms. For
the purposes of generality, we will continue to dierentiate between L and

L. On the
right hand side, R
s
is the residual of the force balance equations and R
f
is the resid-
ual of the ow equations. Using the notation of Aziz & Settari (1979), E = T D,
where T is the transmissibility matrix, D is the diagonal accumulation matrix, and
R
f
= QTP
n
, where Q is the vector of well terms.
6.1.1 Fully Coupled Model
The most natural and consistent way to solve a fully coupled system is to write
a complete set of equations, apply consistent discretization methods, then build one
matrix system so that it can be solved by the Newton-Raphson method or some other
solution method. Here we call this approach the fully coupled method. As stated by
Zienkiewicz & Taylor (1988), coupled systems can be classied into two categories,
according to the way the problem is solved:
The rst class contains problems in which coupling occurs on domain interfaces
via the boundary conditions imposed there. Generally the domains describe
dierent physical situations, but it is possible to consider coupling between
domains that are physically similar, in which dierent discretization techniques
have been used.
The second class contains problems in which various domains overlap (totally or
partially). Here the coupling occurs through the governing dierential equations
describing dierent physical phenomena.
For the rst category, dierent discretization methods can be applied to dierent
sub-domains easily, because dierent physical problems are coupled only through the
boundaries. However for the second category, normally only one discretization method
6.1. DIFFERENT LEVELS OF COUPLING 87
is applied to the overlapped sub-domains. Coupled geomechanics and multiphase ow
problem belongs to the second category. Lewis & Schreer (1998) and Gutierrez &
Lewis (1998) described a complete and robust fully-coupled approach to solve this
system by using a nite element method, and their multiphase ow model is a black
oil model. Chin et al. (1998) also presented a fully coupled model using nite element
methods. All the current existing fully coupled nite element models use the Galerkin
method for the ow equations, which is known to be unstable for advection dominant
problems. Chen & Teufel (1997) and Osorio et al. (1997) extended Biots theory and
developed their model for naturally fractured reservoirs by using the nite dierence
method. Pyrah (1987) pointed out the deciency of nite dierence methods in
plasticity calculations.
In the area of geomechanics, most of the techniques were developed using nite
element methods. Finite dierence methods are of limited value for problems with the
assumption of large strain, that is, when large deformation is considered. For ow
simulation, by contrast, control volume nite dierence methods are widely used,
but nite element methods are not used routinely. A practical approach to couple
geomechanics with multiphase ow would be a hybrid approach of nite dierence and
nite element methods. Although iteratively coupled hybrid nite element and nite
dierence approaches have been presented in the literature (Settari & Mourits 1994,
Chin et al. 1998, Koutsabeloulis & Hope 1998, Settari & Mourits 1998, Dean 2000), no
fully coupled hybrid nite element and nite dierence approach has been reported.
One of our tasks will be to develop such a fully coupled approach, so that we can
compare it with the iteratively coupled approaches. In the hybrid approach, the
variables are normally discretized at dierent locations, ow variables are normally
block-centered, while displacements are nodal.
In summary, the fully coupled approach has the advantage of internal consistency,
and it avoids phase lags.
6.1.2 Non-Fully Coupled Model
We group all the other coupling methods involving more than one matrix system into
the category of non-fully coupled models, which can be divided into the following
categories.
Decoupled Model
In classical reservoir simulation, rock deformation is not considered. Instead, rock
compressibilities are used. With solid coupling terms neglected (u = 0), the ow
equation part of Eq. (6.1) becomes
[E]
[P]
+1
= [
R
f
]
(6.2)
where the residual

R
f
diers from R
f
in Eq. (6.1) because the solid coupling terms
are not included. In the decoupled model, the ow equations are solved rst, then
the pressure change is considered explicitly in the solid equations:
[K]
[u]
+1
= [R
s
]
(6.3)
Next, stress dependent properties, such as compressibility, permeability and porosity,
are modied accordingly, and rock properties are at best updated at specic times.
This is the simplest way to combine two codes, but it has phase lag and it neglects
the coupling terms in the ow equations.
Iteratively Coupled Model
As presented by Settari & Walters (1999), the iteratively coupled method iterates
between the two models during the time step. Although the solid and uid equations
are solved separately, the coupling variables are exchanged at each iteration. The
6.1. DIFFERENT LEVELS OF COUPLING 89
matrix form can be expressed as:
[K]
[u]
+1
= [R
s
]
(6.4a)
[E][P]
+1
= [R
f
]
(6.4b)
The residuals terms in Eq. (6.4) are the same as those in Eq. (6.1), which includes all
of the coupling terms. In this formulation, if it converges, the solution is identical to
that of the fully coupled system. We can also view this iterative method as a method
using a modied Newton-Raphson approach on the fully coupled model by making L
and

L zero in Eq. 6.1
_
K 0
0
T
E
_
_
u
P
_
+1
=
_
R
s
R
f
_
(6.5)
As we know, when the Jacobian for the Newton-Raphson is not exact, it takes longer
to converge. In fact, for a complicated function space, modied Newton-Raphson
may not converge. This is one drawback of iteratively coupled methods. The other
concern relates to its implementation in practice. Normally two codes and two dis-
cretization methods are employed. A certain mapping is inevitable. Therefore the
iteratively coupled approach may not exactly have the form of Eq. (6.4). Settari &
Mourits (1998) addressed alternative approaches of volume coupling and ow prop-
erty coupling. In volume coupling, volumetric strain computed from the stress model
is used to determine reservoir porosity and permeability. The coupling terms are nor-
mally neglected. Although the dominant eects of geomechanics on reservoir ow is
through porosity, neglecting the coupling terms leads to a modication of the original
equations.
If the iteration number is one, the iterative coupling approach becomes an explic-
itly coupled approach, which is normally explained as lagging the coupling terms one
time step behind. Minko et al. (1999) coupled their mixed nite element black oil
reservoir simulator with a nonlinear nite element solid mechanics code from Sandia
National Laboratory. This code is 3-D and parallel, but the coupling approach is a
staggered one-way coupling, which is an explicit coupling approach.
At this point, we have reviewed the coupling approaches developed in the past.
Next we will propose a new coupling approach, so that the stabilized nite element
techniques can be incorporated naturally.
6.2 A New Framework of Coupling
In this framework, we use stabilized nite element methods to descretize the force
balance equations (Eq. 2.72) and the pressure equation (Eq. 2.87). The remaining
ow equations (saturation equations) are solved by a nite dierence method. The
system of equations is solved in a fully coupled fashion. Only one Jacobian is involved.
Of course, an iteratively coupled method can also be applied in this framework. The
Newton-Raphson matrix form is
_
_
K L
p
L
S
L
T
p
E
p
T
S
L
T
S
T
p
E
S
_
_
u
p
S
w
_
_
+1
=
_
_
R
s
R
p
R
S
_
(6.6)
where

L
p
is exactly equal to L
p
. T
S
contains the derivatives of the pressure equation
with respect to saturation, and T
p
contains the derivatives of the saturation equation
with respect to pressure.
The owchart of this fully coupled method is shown in Fig. 6.1. It can be compared
with the ow chart of an iteratively coupled method, shown in Fig. 6.2. The coupling
methods we are using dier from those in the literature, because a reformulated
pressure equation is solved by the stabilized nite element methods together with
the force balance equations. However we can observe from the ow charts that the
sequence of operations is similar to the ICM and FCM methods.
6.2. A NEW FRAMEWORK OF COUPLING 91
Start
end
t
n
=t
i
,
n
=
i
, u
n
=u
i
p
n
=p
i
, S
w,n
=S
w,i
u
(v+1)
n
=u
(v)
n
+u
(v)
p
(v+1)
n
=p
(v)
n
+p
(v)
S
(v+1)
w,n
=S
(v)
w,n
+S
(v)
w
calculate
n,
update Jacobian and RHS
iteration v = 0,
u
v
n
=u
n
, p
v
n
=p
n
,
S
v
w,n
=S
w,n
linear solver
check convergence
no, v=v+1
t
n
=t
n
+t , u
n
=u
(v+1)
n
p
n
=p
(v+1)
n
, S
w,n
=S
(v+1)
w,n
t
n
t
max
no, n=n+1
Figure 6.1: Flow chart for the fully coupled approach with stabilized nite element
and nite dierence methods
Start
end
t
n
=t
i
,
n
=
i
, u
n
=u
i
p
n
=p
i
, S
w,n
=S
w,i
saturation equation solve
S
(v)
w,n
=S
(v)
w,n
+S
(v)
w
iteration v = 0,
u
v
n
=u
n
, p
v
n
=p
n
,
S
v
w,n
=S
w,n
check convergence
no, v=v+1
t
n
=t
n
+t , u
n
=u
(v+1)
n
p
n
=p
(v+1)
n
, S
w,n
=S
(v+1)
w,n
t
n
t
max
no, n=n+1
pressure equation and
force balance equation solve
u
(v)
n
=u
(v)
n
+u
(v)
p
(v)
n
=p
(v)
n
+p
(v)
then update porosity
u
(v)
n
,p
(v)
n
,
(v)
n

v > 0
no, v=v+1
yes
Figure 6.2: Flow chart for the iteratively coupled approach with stabilized nite
element and nite dierence methods
Chapter 7
Numerical Experiments of Coupled
Geomechanics and Reservoir ow
The coupled models that we have implemented include (Wan 2002)
Conventional and Non-stabilized
FCM: Fully Coupled Model with the Galerkin nite element method for
the force balance equations and the upstream weighted nite dierence method
for the multiphase ow mass balance equations. All the equations are solved in
a single Jacobian system.
ICM: Iteratively Coupled Model with the Galerkin nite element method
for the force balance equations and the upstream weighted nite dierence
method for multiphase ow mass balance equations. Two types of ICM will
be considered, with and without coupling terms in the multiphase ow mass
balance equations. Unless otherwise specied, ICM refers to the model with
coupling terms included.
Stabilized
FEAST: The framework with the stabilized nite element method for the
force balance equations and pressure equation, and the upstream weighted nite
dierence method for the remaining multiphase ow mass balance equations.
All the equations are also solved in a single Jacobian system.
93
94 CHAPTER 7. NUMERICAL EXPERIMENTS OF COUPLED MODELS
FCM and ICM models are implemented for three-dimensional problems. FEAST
model as developed here is only for two-dimensional problems, although the single
phase model has been extended to three-dimensions. In the calculations presented in
this chapter, the automatic time step algorithm described in Aziz & Settari (1979) is
used. Two types of solvers are used in the programs: a skyline solver (a direct prole
solver) and a GMRES solver (an iterative sparse matrix solver). The details of the
solver library can be seen in Appendix C.3.
In this chapter, we will rst study the characteristics of coupled geomechanics
and reservoir ow for a single producer single phase case and a quarter of a ve-
spot pattern two phase case. Simple compressibility models corresponding to specic
stress/displacement assumptions are applied on a nite dierence reservoir simulator
we developed (Wan 2002), so that the results can be compared with the Fully Coupled
Model (FCM). Next, we will use the results from the Eclipse (2003a) simulator to
validate FCM. FCM functions in both two- and three-dimensions. The result will
serve as a benchmark for the evaluation of dierent iteratively coupled models and
for the testing of the new FEAST framework. Finally we will show a case where
the iteratively or fully coupled models have diculty in producing smooth pressures,
while FEAST with stabilized methods leads to stable results.
7.1 Validation Using Rock Compressibility
In conventional reservoir simulators, geomechanical eects are represented using a
rock compressibility factor, dened according to the change of pore volume V
p
with
pressure
c
r
=
1
V
p
d V
p
d p
(7.1)
For xed bulk volume V
b
, which is normally the case in reservoir simulation, we have
=
V
p
V
b
, c
r
=
1
d
d p
(7.2)
7.1. VALIDATION USING ROCK COMPRESSIBILITY 95
The rock compressibility was originally introduced by Geertsma (1957). Normally
c
r
is measured in the lab from eld samples. In real cases, a reservoir has compli-
cated geometry and heterogeneity and the stress boundary over the reservoir domain
may vary in time and space. Simple compressibility models can not therefore fully
capture the geomechanical eects. However, if the uid ow is the main interest,
the rock compressibility model can reasonably predict reservoir ow response under
certain assumptions, which are discussed by Settari & Mourits (1998) and Gutierrez
& Lewis (1998). These compressibility models will be used for comparison with new
developments.
The eective reservoir rock compressibility depends on boundary conditions, and
stress and strain responses of the reservoir. There are two types of assumptions by
which a simple rock compressibility form can be derived (Settari & Mourits 1998,
Gutierrez & Lewis 1998). The rst type assumes free deformation in all directions,
such that there are no incremental stresses generated as a result of pressure change. In
this case, the mean stress is zero everywhere, therefore a direct relationship between
strain and porosity can be used to derive the compressiblity (Settari & Mourits 1998).
With negligible grain compaction, the rst type of rock compressibility c
I
r
is (Settari
& Mourits 1998)
c
I
r
=
3(1 2)
E
0
(7.3)
where
0
is the initial porosity. The second type assumes that the system is con-
strained laterally and free vertically. The second type of rock compressibility c
II
r
is
(Settari & Mourits 1998)
c
II
r
=
(1 2)(1 + )
E(1 )
0
(7.4)
7.1.1 Case I: Primary Depletion
The two types of assumptions discussed previously are: a reservoir with free deforma-
tion in all directions (Type I) and a reservoir constrained laterally but free vertically
(Type II). They will be used in the examples presented next.
Type I Assumption with c
I
r
It is dicult to achieve the exact free deformation in all directions. The numerical
system we build for this has constant total stress applied on the boundaries. The
reservoir properties are as follows:
Table 7.1: Reservoir properties for type I assumption model
Parameter Value
size (ft
3
) 1600 1600 100
p
i
(psi) 5200
k
x
, k
y
(md) 500 500
E (MPa) 1.2 10
4
or 5000
0.4
We have 21 by 21 grid in the x-y plane, and a constant compressive total stress
of 5200 psi acting on the no-ow boundaries in the normal direction. The producer
with a constant ow rate of 2 10
4
STB/Day is located at the center. Fig. 7.1
compares the FCM with the decoupled reservoir simulator using c
I
r
. According to
Eq. (7.3), a Youngs modulus E =12000 MPa will lead to c
I
r
= 1.567 10
6
psi
1
and a Youngs modulus E = 5000 MPa gives c
I
r
= 3.76 10
6
psi
1
. The results
of the reservoir simulator with zero rock compressibility are used to show the eects
of rock compaction. From Fig. 7.1, we can see that the bottomhole pressure with
rock compaction is higher than that with zero rock compressibility, which shows that
compaction is an important drive mechanism for oil production. The dierences in
results from the coupled model and the eective rock compressibility model widen
when a smaller Youngs modulus is applied. Fine grid models were run to see if
the gap is due to discretization errors, but no changes in results were seen with grid
renement. The main reason for the dierences is that materials with smaller Youngs
modulus are softer and more stress-sensitive, larger incremental stresses are generated
due to pressure changes within the domain, which violate the assumptions of the c
I
r
compressibility model. If we only look at the early time results, where small stress
increments are generated in the domain, the match between the coupled model and
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
days
B
H
P
c
r
I
= 1.567x10
6
psi
1
E = 12000MPa
c
r
I
= 3.76x10
6
psi
1
E = 5000MPa
c
r
I
= 0 psi
1
Figure 7.1: BHP result for type I assumption
the eective rock compressiblity model is fairly good. In cases involving larger rock
deformations, a simple eective rock compressibility can not give accurate predictions.
With relatively sti rock materials, for example when E = 12000 MPa, the results
with an eective compressibility match fairly well with those using the fully coupled
model.
Fig. 7.2 and 7.3 illustrate the distribution of normal stress, shear stress and
displacements for E = 5000 MPa at 20 days. The stress distribution in Fig. 7.2
is consistent with the applied boundary stress. By looking at the stress in the y-
direction, the contours tend to atten out at the top and bottom, because of the
constant compressive stress over the boundaries in the y-direction. In contrast, the
contour lines of the stress in the x-direction atten out at the left and right side of
the domain. In the center, the contour lines form a perfect square with a 45
o
angle
to the axis, which shows the angle of principal stress. Fig. 7.3 shows converging
displacement vectors and contour lines over the centered well, and the shear stress
has four symmetric quadrangles, with opposite signs over adjacent quadrangles and
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
X
Y
Stress in yDirection
2
1
2
1
.
0
3
6
9
2
1
4
5
.
4
4
3
7
2
1
6
9
.
8
5
0
6
2
2
1
8
.
6
6
4
4
2
2
6
7
.
4
7
8
1
2
1
9
4
.
2
5
7
5
2
1
6
9
.
8
5
0
6
2
1
4
5
.
4
4
3
7
2
1
2
1
.
0
3
6
9
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
X
Y
Stress in xDirection
2
1
2
1
.
0
3
6
9
2
1
4
5
.
4
4
3
7
2
1
9
4
.2
5
7
5
2
2
4
3
.
0
7
1
3
2
2
9
1
.
8
8
5
2
1
9
4
.
2
5
7
5
2
1
6
9
.
8
5
0
6
2
1
4
5
.
4
4
3
7
2
1
2
1
.
0
3
6
9
Figure 7.2: Stress in the x- and y- directions for primary depletion case
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
X
Y
Shear Stress
2
.
9
9
3
8
5
.9
8
6
3
8
.
9
7
8
8
2
.
9
9
1
3
5
.
9
8
3
8
8
.
9
7
6
3
2
.
9
9
3
8
5
.
9
8
6
3
8
.
9
7
8
8
8
.9
7
6
3
5
.9
8
3
8
2.9913
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
22
X
Y
Displacement
0
.
9
7
2
8
1
.
4
0
1
4
1
.
4
0
1
4
1
.
4
0
1
4
1
.8
3

1
.
8
3
1
.8
3
Figure 7.3: Shear stress and displacement for primary depletion case
zero shear stresses on the interface over adjacent quadrangles . This is a result of
the fact that the displacement in the center is essentially zero and the displacement
vectors are symmetrically converging to the center.
Type II Assumption with c
II
r
The reservoir and controlling parameters are the same as for the type I assumption
case. Instead of looking at the x-y plane, now we consider the x-z plane with a 21 by
21 grid. The system is conned in the x-direction, with no incremental displacement.
A constant stress of 5200 psi acts on the top with the displacement of the bottom
xed. There is no ow through the boundaries. We can draw similar conclusions
from Fig. 7.4 as those from Fig. 7.1. In this case, the gap between the coupled
models and the eective rock compressibility model widens with decreasing Youngs
Modulus. In the case of conned lateral displacement, the eective compressibility
(Type II) is smaller than that with free displacements in all directions (Type I). In
real reservoir applications, the case of conned lateral displacement is of little use,
because this situation rarely exists.
7.1.2 Case II: A Quarter of A Five-Spot Pattern
This is a waterooding case in a quarter of a ve-spot conguration. We only look at
Type I assumption, i.e., free deformation in all directions. The reservoir properties
and controlling parameters are described in Table. 7.1; the relative permeability
curves are shown in Fig. 7.5. Oil and water viscosities are about 1.6 cp and 0.6 cp
respectively. Constant compressive stress of 5200 psi acts on the no ow boundaries
in the normal direction. One producer and one injector with constant rates of 210
3
STB/Day are located at the two corners. Fig. 7.6 illustrates the distribution of stress
in the x-direction and the displacement after producing for 5 days. We can observe
compressive stresses with negative signs around the producer and extensional stresses
with positive signs around the injector. This occurs because of the reservoirs elastic
behavior. The distribution of stress in the y-direction is essentially the same as that
in the x-direction, because of problems symmetry. For the displacement, we show
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
days
B
H
P
c
r
I
= 1.219x10
6
psi
1
E = 12000MPa
c
r
I
= 2.924x10
6
psi
1
E = 5000MPa
c
r
I
= 0 psi
1
Figure 7.4: Bottomhole pressure for type II assumption
0.3 0.35 0.4 0.45 0.5 0.55 0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
S
w
k
r
k
ro
k
rw
Figure 7.5: Relative permeability curve
both the vector and contour plots. Very high pressure in the injector side leads to
the rocks being pushing outward, while the low pressure in the producer side leads
to the rocks being pushed inward.
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
X
Y
Stress in the xdirection, psia
7
4
.
7
0
5
6
5
7
.
3
4
1
1
3
9
.
9
7
6
7
2
2
.
6
1
2
2
5
.
2
4
7
7
1
2
.
1
1
6
8
2
9
.
4
8
1
2 4
6
.
8
4
5
7
6
4
.
2
1
0
2
Inj
Prod
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
X
Y
Displacement, ft
0
.
0
0
5
0
3
7
3
0
.
0
0
9
9
7
3
9
0
.
0
0
9
9
7
3
9

0
.
0
1
4
9
1
1

0
.
0
1
4
9
1
1
0
.0
1
4
9
1
1
0.019847

0
.
0
1
9
8
4
7

0
.
0
1
9
8
4
7

0
.
0
2
4
7
8
4
Inj
Prod
Figure 7.6: Stress distribution for a quater of a ve-spot case
With two types of rock, E = 12000 and 5000 MPa , we applied the two rock com-
pressibilities c
I
r
= 1.56710
6
and 3.7610
6
calculated by Eq. (7.3) for use with our
decoupled reservoir simulator. The comparison between our decoupled model with
adjusted rock compressibility and a coupled model is shown in Figs. 7.7 and 7.8.
Compaction drive gives extra pressure support in the waterooding case. Although
there is still a gap between the two models, a modied rock compressibility gives rea-
sonable predictions. Fig. 7.9 compares water saturations for the rock compressibility
model with c
I
r
= 3.75 10
6
and FCM with E = 5000 MPa at t = 1700 days.In real
applications, free deformation in all directions is impossible to achieve. Because of
the overburden, side-burden and under-burden, the stress over the reservoir will not
be constant. It will be therefore dicult to get a realistic eective rock compressibil-
ity. If the stress distribution is of interest, an accurate coupled model should be the
procedure of choice.
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
days
P
r
o
d
u
c
e
r

B
H
P
c
r
I
= 1.567x10
6
psi
1
E = 12000 MPa
c
r
I
= 3.76x10
6
psi
1
E = 5000 MPa
c
r
I
= 0 psi
1
Figure 7.7: Comparison of producer BHP for a quarter of a ve-spot case
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
days
I
n
j
e
c
t
o
r

B
H
P
c
r
I
= 1.567x10
6
psi
1
E = 12000 MPa
c
r
I
= 3.76x10
6
psi
1
E = 5000 MPa
c
r
I
= 0 psi
1
Figure 7.8: Comparison of injector BHP for a quarter of a ve-spot case
7.2. VALIDATION USING ECLIPSE (2003A) 103
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
x
y
S
w
map, c
r
I
= 3.76x10
6
psi
1
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.65
0.7
0.75
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
x
y
S
w
map, E = 5000 MPa
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
0.55
0.6
0.65
0.7
0.75
Figure 7.9: Water saturation map by FCM and c
I
r
model at t = 1700 days
7.2 Validation Using Eclipse (2003a)
Eclipse (2003a) has options for fully coupled geomechanics and reservoir ow. The
geomechanics part is solved by a nite dierence method using staggered grids (Stone
et al. 2000), and the system can be solved either in fully coupled or iteratively coupled
fashion.
Fig 7.10 describes the conguration of the test case. It is a box-shaped three-
dimensional reservoir with the displacement of the bottom face and two vertial faces
xed. A constant compressive stress of 4786 psi is applied on the other three faces.
The reservoir is isotropic and homogeneous with a permeability of 34 md. An injector
is in a lower corner with a producer in the upper opposite corner. The producer has
a xed BHP constraint of 1600 psi, and the injector has a constant injection rate
of 3000 STB/Day. The initial water saturation is set to be 1, therefore the system
is single phase. The porosity is 0.33 and the water viscosity is 0.96. The wellbore
radius is 0.5 ft, and the well index of the producer is set to be 8.7979 times that of
y
9000ft
9000ft
60ft
0 x
z
Figure 7.10: Description of an Eclipse case
the injector, so that the average pressure at steady state is not too high. The results
are shown at a time when steady state is reached, which means both the injector and
the producer have constant ow rates of 3000 STB/Day. Fig. 7.11 shows the ow
rate of the producer compared with that of the injector. We can see the producers
ow rate stabilizes at 3000 STB/Day after 4000 days for both Eclipse and our FCM
model.
Fig. 7.12, 7.13 and 7.14 compare the stress in the x- and z- directions and the
shear stress in the x-y plane for the top layer. Figs. 7.15 and 7.16 compare the
displacement in the x- and z- directions. The overall proles of the contour plots
match very well, but there are some dierences in the values. This may be related
to the location of displacement variables and dierent discretization errors due to
dierent methods. In our case, the displacement variables are nodal, while those in
Eclipse are placed on staggered grids.
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
days
f
l
o
w

r
a
t
e

(
S
T
B
/
D
a
y
)
Eclipse producer
FCM producer
Eclipse injector
FCM injector
Figure 7.11: Flow rate history of the producer
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
Eclipse stress in the xdirection
1
3
9
0
.
2
0
2
2
1
0
8
6
.
4
5
5
1
7
8
2
.
7
0
7
9
4
7
8
.
9
6
0
7
1
7
5
.
2
1
3
5
1
2
8
.
5
3
3
7
4
3
2
.
2
8
0
9
7
3
6
.
0
2
8
1
1
0
3
9
.
7
7
5
3
1
3
4
3
.
5
2
2
4
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
FCM stress in the xdirection
1
3
7
1
.
3
6
2
5
1
0
7
0
.
1
1
5
6
7
6
8
.
8
6
8
8
4
6
7
.
6
2
1
9
1
6
6
.
3
7
5
1
3
4
.
8
7
1
9
4
3
6
.
1
1
8
8
7
3
7
.
3
6
5
6
1
0
3
8
.
6
1
2
5
1
3
3
9
.
8
5
9
4
Figure 7.12: Stress in the x-direction
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
Eclipse stress in the zdirection
1
6
5
0
.
1
5
2
1
1
3
3
1
.
8
0
5
8
1
0
1
3
.
4
5
9
4
6
9
5
.
1
1
3
1
3
7
6
.
7
6
6
8
5
8
.
4
2
0
5
2
5
9
.
9
2
5
8 5
7
8
.
2
7
2
1
8
9
6
.
6
1
8
4
1
2
1
4
.
9
6
4
7
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
FCM stress in the zdirection
1
5
3
4
.
5
7
5
6
1
2
2
6
.
1
8
7
5
9
1
7
.
7
9
9
4
6
0
9
.
4
1
1
2
3
0
1
.
0
2
3
1
7
.
3
6
5
3
1
5
.
7
5
3
1
6
2
4
.
1
4
1
2
9
3
2
.
5
2
9
4 1
2
4
0
.
9
1
7
5
Figure 7.13: Stress in the z-direction
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
Eclipse shear stress in the xy direction
18.8253
2
9
.7
7
7
2
4
0
.7
2
9
1
51.6811
57.157
4
6
.2
0
5
1
1
3
.3
4
9
3
2
4
.3
0
1
2
4
0
.7
2
9
1
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
FCM shear stress in the xy direction
20.4076
3
3
.1
6
7
4
3
9
.5
4
7
3
4
5
.
9
2
7
2
5
2
.
3
0
7
1
5
8
.
6
8
7
4
5
.9
2
7
2
3
3
.1
6
7
4
20.4076
1
4
.0
2
7
7
Figure 7.14: Shear stress in the x-y plane
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
Eclipse displacement in the xdirection
0
.
1
5
0
3
8
0
.
0
3
3
5
8
7 0
.
0
4
4
2
7
4
0
.
1
2
2
1
3
0.2
0
.
2
3
8
9
3
0
.2
7
7
8
6
0
.3
1
6
7
9
0
.3
5
5
7
2
0
.3
9
4
6
5
0
.
4
3
3
5
8
0
.
1
6
1
0
7
0.2
0
.
1
2
2
1
3
0
.
0
8
3
2
0
4
0
.
0
4
4
2
7
4
0
.
1
0
5
8
2 4 6 8 10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
x
y
FCM displacement in the xdirection
0
.
4
3
2
0
7
0
.
1
9
3
0
2
0
.
0
1
3
7
2
5 0
.
0
4
6
0
3
8
0
.
1
0
5
8
0
.1
6
5
5
7
0
.1
6
5
5
7
0
.
1
0
5
8
0
.
2
2
5
3
3
0
.
2
8
5
0
9
0.34486
0
.
0
4
6
0
3
8
Figure 7.15: Displacement in the x-direction
2 4 6 8
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
x
y
Eclipse displacement in the zdirection
0
.
0
0
8
1
4
1
1
0
.
0
0
6
0
6
2
5
0
.
0
0
3
9
8
3
9
0
.
0
0
1
9
0
5
2
0
.
0
0
0
1
7
3
3
7
0
.
0
0
2
2
5
2
0
.
0
0
4
3
3
0
6
0
.
0
0
6
4
0
9
2
0
.
0
1
0
5
6
7
2 4 6 8 10
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
x
y
FCM displacement in the zdirection
0
.
0
1
1
9
6
9
0
.
0
0
8
5
8
6
3
0
.
0
0
5
2
0
3
5
0
.
0
0
1
8
2
0
7
0
.
0
0
1
5
6
2
1
0
.
0
0
4
9
4
5
0
.
0
0
8
3
2
7
8
0
.
0
1
1
7
1
1
0
.
0
1
5
0
9
3
0
.
0
2
1
8
5
9
Figure 7.16: Displacement in the z-direction
7.3 Comparisons between FCM, FEAST and ICM
With the validations using Eclipse and some simple rock compressibility models, we
have good condence in FCM. Now we are going to use FCM to compare its results
with other models.
7.3.1 Case I: Primary Depletion
Fig. 7.17 compares three coupled models (FEAST, ICM and FCM) with Youngs
modulus E = 12000 MPa or 5000 MPa for the case mentioned in Section 7.1.1.
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
days
B
H
P
E = 5000 Mpa
E = 12000 Mpa
FEAST
ICM
FCM
Figure 7.17: Comparison of FCM, FEAST and ICM for primary depletion case
The ICM and FCM give the same results, while FEAST predicts 20-30 psi lower
bottomhole pressure. The reason for this discrepancy may be the dierence in the
well model, as discussed in Appendix B. In the nite element model, the pressure
unknowns are located at the nodes of each block, therefore the radial ow assumptions
can be directly applied to obtain the bottomhole pressure from the nodal pressures.
If we look closely in Fig. 7.17, we can see the gradient of the curves is basically
7.3. COMPARISONS BETWEEN FCM, FEAST AND ICM 109
the same, which means the response of the reservoir by FEAST is correct. Overall,
the dierence between FEAST and FCM is very small in this case, and the match
between all three models is fairly good. As for the computational cost, FCM normally
takes 1 or 2 fewer iterations than ICM, because ICM is essentially a modied Newton-
Raphson Method. However the computational cost for solving the larger Jacobian
matrix by FCM is larger than the cost of the linear solve in ICM. FEAST takes about
2 more iterations than FCM.
7.3.2 Case II: A Quarter of A Five Spot Pattern
Now we will look at comparisons between results from FCM, FEAST and ICM for
a waterooding case. This case has the same conguration as that discussed in
Section 7.1.2. Fig. 7.18 compares the three coupled models: FEAST, FCM and ICM.
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
6000
days
B
H
P
Injector BHP, FEAST
Injector BHP, FCM
Injector BHP, ICM
Producer BHP, FEAST
Producer BHP, FCM
Producer BHP, ICM
Figure 7.18: Comparison between FEAST, FCM and ICM for waterooding case
FCM and ICM are in close agreement. There are some visible dierences between
FEAST and FCM. One possible error may come from the well model, as discussed in
Appendix B. The dominant reason is the way the ux between blocks is calculated in
FEAST. Because we would like a simple way to combine the nite element module
and the nite dierence module, we consider the nite element block as the control
volume block for the nite dierence module. The placement of the pressure is on the
nodes of each element, while the placement of the saturation follows the traditional
approach in nite dierence methods, that is, the element center. In FEAST, we
average the nodal pressures into the element center, then pass that pressure to the
saturation equation to calculate a two-point ux and update the pressure related
nonlinear terms. This can lead to errors in the ux calculation, and consequently the
mass conservation. The issues of mass conservation will be discussed in detail at the
end of this chapter. The water saturation maps from FCM and FEAST are shown in
Fig. 7.19. The agreement is fairly good in this case.
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
x
y
FCM
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
x
y
FEAST
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
Figure 7.19: Water saturation map by FCM and FEAST model at t = 1600 days
At the cost of losing some accuracy by the current method of velocity calculation,
FEAST has built-in stabilization. We will show later in Section 7.5 its role in avoiding
pressure oscillations. The velocity calculation can also be improved through use of
a Control Volume Finite Element (CVFE) procedure, which we will describe at the
end of this chapter.
7.4. EVALUATION OF COUPLING TERMS 111
7.4 Evaluation of the Role of Coupling Terms in
Iteratively Coupled Method
As mentioned in Section 6.1.2, ICM solves the same equations as FCM, so both
should produce the same results. However, in realistic eld implementations, due to
the complexity of merging two large codes, the coupling terms in the ow equations
are sometimes neglected while using ICM. We tested this idea on the simple case
mentioned in Section 7.1.1, in which there is only a small dierence between ICM with
and without coupling terms. However, this case is not representative of complicated
eld cases, as we will see from the following heterogeneous case. Fig. 7.20 shows
an example of a heterogeneous eld in the x-y plane. An injector is placed at the
Permeability
Prod
Inj
East
E
l
e
v
.
-2.000 98.000
-2.000
98.000
10.000
110.000
210.000
310.000
410.000
510.000
610.000
710.000
810.000
Figure 7.20: Heterogeneous eld
bottom-left corner, while a producer is placed at the top-right corner. The size of
the reservoir is 1600 by 1600 by 100 ft
3
. The initial pressure is 5200 psi and uniform
stress of 5200 psi acts on the boundaries. A constant rate of 10000 STB/Day is used
for both the injector and the producer. Fig. 7.21 shows a comparison of the producer
BHP obtained from ICM with and without coupling terms. Both of these models
0 500 1000 1500 2000
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
5500
Injector
Producer
days
B
H
P
with coupling terms
without coupling terms
Figure 7.21: The eects of coupling terms on the producer BHP
have porosity changes. It is clear that ICM without coupling terms underestimates
the pressure by about 100 psi.
To understand the role of the coupling terms better, we now look at the water-oil
system equations.
t
S
p
p
+ (S
p
p
v
ps
) + (S
p
p
v
s
) = 0 (7.5)
As we know, the Darcys velocity term S
p
p
v
ps
is a ux term which accounts for ow
between blocks. Similarly, S
p
p
v
s
in the coupling term and (S
p
p
v
s
) can also be
considered a ux term, which accounts for the eects of rock deformation on ow. If
the coupling terms are neglected, the ux contribution of the solid is neglected, even
though the porosity variations (Eq. 2.9) are always considered. This may lead to
inaccurate results for some cases. This example shows that for heterogeneous elds,
it is important to have all of the physics in the coupled model.
7.4. EVALUATION OF COUPLING TERMS 113
Fig. 7.20 shows a low permeability layer beside the producer and a high perme-
ability zone around the injector. We can study the eect of heterogeneity on stress
distribution through this case. If we look at stress distribution in the x-direction at
t = 1820 days in Fig. 7.22, we can see that the contour lines of stress are greatly
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
x
y
Stress in the xdirection
1
5
5
2
.
6
8
8
9
1
5
1
8
.
5
2
6
2
1
4
7
2
.
9
7
5
9
1
4
3
8
.8
1
3
2
1
4
1
6
.0
3
8
1
1
4
0
4
.
6
5
0
5
1
3
9
3
.
2
6
3
1
3
8
1
.
8
7
5
4
1
3
5
9
.
1
0
0
3
1
3
7
0
.
4
8
7
8
5 10 15 20
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
x
y
Shear stress
2
.
5
7
6
5
1
.
6
9
6
3
0
.
8
1
6
0
4
0
.
0
6
4
1
7
8
0.9444
0.064178
0
.3
7
5
9
3
0
.8
1
6
0
4
0
.
9
4
4
4
0
.
0
6
4
1
7
8
0
.
3
7
5
9
3
Figure 7.22: Stress in the x-direction and shear stress
concentrated around the low permeability layer, as opposed to the high permeability
zone. The contour lines around the low permeability zone are approximately parallel
to the low permeability zones direction. In Fig 7.22 the largest shear stresses are
localized around the low permeability zone, which may lead to the shearing of the
shale zone. With this we can conclude that accurate modeling of low permeability
zones is important in coupled geomechanics and reservoir ow modeling, because
these regions can strongly aect the stress distribution.
7.5 Improved Stability by Stabilized Coupled Model
In the previous examples, no oscillations are observed in the homogeneous cases where
the permeability is high; for the example of Section 7.4, small oscillations can be
observed in the low permeability zone at very early times. This is consistent with
the analysis in Chapter 3. We now show a case with pressure oscillations in reservoir
problems. Because of the nature of the saddle point problem discussed in Chapter 3,
the B-B condition must be satised to avoid spatial pressure oscillations. Fig. 7.23
shows a case with low permeability shales in which pressure oscillations are observed.
The reservoir is 1600 1600 100 ft. The initial pressure is 5200 psi, and a constant
y
Prod1
Prod2
Prod3
Shale 1
x
Matrix
Shale 2
Figure 7.23: Reservoir model with two shale layers
stress of 5200 psi acts on all boundaries. Homogeneous isotropic permeability is 50
md. There are two shale layers of permeability 0.0001 md in the y-z plane, which
divide the reservoir into three layers. One producer is located in each of the three
layers. Fig. 7.24 shows the pressure oscillations in the shale layer 2 that are observed
when FCM is used. This is consistent with the analysis presented in Chapter 3 for
7.5. IMPROVED STABILITY BY STABILIZED COUPLED MODEL 115
the saddle point problem. Because of the low permeability, the error incurred at
early times does not damp out immediately; it might even increase with time. We
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
5195
5200
5205
5210
5215
5220
5225
5230
p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
p
s
i
)
x
t = 0.41 day
t = 1 day
t = 2 days
Figure 7.24: Oscillations in pressure using FCM
can see that oscillations are amplied from 0.01 day to 1 day. In Fig. 7.24, we can
notice a slight increase of overall pressure. This is because of the compressive stress
boundary conditions. The shale layer responds to the compressive stress boundary,
but the small amount of uid within the shale layer can not ow out immediately.
These oscillating pressures may lead to convergence problems in simulation runs.
Using the stabilized method in the FEAST framework, stability in pressure is
achieved as shown in Fig. 7.25. The clear advantages of the stabilized method for
this problem are evident. This type of oscillatory problem has not been previously
identied in the petroleum engineering literature. For realistic scale reservoir prob-
lems, the variations in permeability can be very large and low permeability zones
often exist. Due to the eects of low permeability zones on the stress distribution,
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
5195
5200
5205
5210
5215
5220
5225
5230
p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
p
s
i
)
x
t = 0.41 day
t = 1 day
t = 2 days
Figure 7.25: Stabilized pressure obtained using FEAST
as we observe in Fig. 7.22, it is important to have a geomechanics model suitable for
low permeabilities. However the problem is that low permeability zones may cause
pressure oscillations in standard implementations because of the B-B condition. This
is where stabilized approaches provide considerable improvement over standard tech-
niques.
7.6 Discussion and Summary
7.6.1 Local and global mass conservation
We now examine the local and global mass conservation errors for the results from
the FEAST framework in Section 7.3. Because in the current FEAST framework,
the nite element block is considered to be the same as the control volume for the
nite dierence module, the nodal pressures p
o
are averaged to get the block-centered
pressures, which are used by the saturation equation to calculate the ux and pressure
7.6. DISCUSSION AND SUMMARY 117
related nonlinear terms. Using this averaged block-centered pressure to calculate the
ux between adjacent blocks may lead to inconsistency or mass conservation errors.
Here we are going to calculate the local mass balance residual error R
local
presented
by Eq. 7.6,
R
local
=
_
V
block
_

t
S
o
b
o
+ (b
o
v
os
) + S
o
b
o
v
s
q
o
_
dV
block
(7.6)
The nite dierence discretization of Eq. (7.6) follows the notations in Aziz (1997).
R
local
=
V
block
t
(S
n+1
o
b
n+1
o
S
n
o
b
n
o
)
l
(T
o
p
o
)
l
+
S
o
b
o
t
l
(Au
s
)
n+1
l

S
o
b
o
t
l
(Au
s
)
n
l
q
o
V
block
(7.7)
where V
block
is the volume of the reservoir block,
l
is the summation over all the
connected blocks l = i, j, k and
(T
o
p
o
)
l
= T
o,l
(p
o,l
p
o,l1
) T
o,l+
(p
o,l+1
p
o,l
) (7.8)
(Au
s
)
l
= A
l
u
s,l
A
l+
u
s,l+
(7.9)
T
o,l
=
A
l
x
l
_
k
l
k
ro
b
o
o
_
l
(7.10)
The global mass balance error R
global
is obtained by the summation of the local mass
change rates over all the blocks shown in Eq. 7.11
R
global
=
nblocks
_
V
block
t
(S
n+1
o
b
n+1
o
S
n
o
b
n
o
) q
o
V
block
_
(7.11)
In eld units, R
local
and R
global
have the units of STB/Day.
7.6.2 Primary Depletion Case
Fig. 7.26 shows the distribution of [R
local
[ in log
10
scale for the case discussed in
Section 7.3.1. For the 1600 1600 100 ft
3
reservoir with a producer of 2 10
4
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 0.01 day
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 1 day
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 15 days
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 25 days
3
2
1
0
1
2
3
Figure 7.26: Local mass balance error of power of 10 STB/Day for primary depletion
case
STB/Day, the local mass balance error in Fig. 7.26 is in the range of 10
3
to 10
3
STB/Day. The largest errors are around the wells. When the reservoir enters pseudo-
steady state, the error distributions are the same, as seen in Fig. 7.26 for t = 15 and
25 days.
Fig. 7.27 describes the change of R
global
over time. Although the mass is not
locally conserved with respect to the nite dierence control volumes, the global
mass conservation is basically achieved. Dividing the error by the total ow rate
2 10
4
, we get less than 1% errors. Weve seen from Fig. 7.17 that a fairly good
match between FEAST and FCM is obtained.
0 5 10 15 20 25
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
days
G
l
o
b
a
l

m
a
s
s

b
a
l
a
n
c
e

e
r
r
o
r

(

0
/
0

)
Figure 7.27: Global mass balance error for primary depletion case
7.6.3 Waterooding Case
Fig. 7.28 shows the distribution of R
local
for the case in Section 7.3.2. The local
mass balance error in Fig. 7.28 is in the range of 10
2
to 10
2
STB/Day. The largest
errors are around the producer (the bottom-right corner), the injector (the top-left
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 0.01 day
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 200 days
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 600 days
5 10 15 20
5
10
15
20
x
y
t = 1000 days
2
1
0
1
2
2
1
0
1
2
2
1
0
1
2
2
1
0
1
2
Figure 7.28: Local mass balance errors (10
STB/Day) for waterooding case

corner) and the water front. With the advancement of the water front, the local mass
conservation errors are propagated along the water front.
Fig. 7.29 describes the change of R
global
over time. Similar to the primary depletion
case, the global mass conservation errors are small. The value of R
global
is about 7
STB/Day, which is less than 0.5 percent of the total ow rate.
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
days
G
l
o
b
a
l

m
a
s
s

b
a
l
a
n
c
e

e
r
r
o
r

(

0
/
0

)
Figure 7.29: Global mass balance error for waterooding case
In summary, one limitation of the current FEAST framework is the local mass
conservation. However this can be improved through the application of a CVFE
method (Eymard & Sonier 1994, Fung et al. 1992, Verma 1996). In CVFE type grids,
the control volume for the mass balance equations is constructed from the edge-centers
and barycenters of the elements. Normally the elements constitute the primary
grid, while the CVFEs form the dual grid. We borrow a gure from Verma (1996)
to describe the CVFE grid in Fig 7.30. The properties, such as permeabilities, are
uniform within the triangle. Each control volume therefore has mixed properties.
If we use CVFE grids, all of the variables, including displacement, pressure and
saturation, will be placed on the same location, the node. This avoids the need for
any averaging techniques. The uxes are calculated along the control volume edges,
i
j
k
k'
c'
c''
Figure 7.30: CVFE grid from Verma (1996)
which lie inside the elements. In this way, the continuity of the normal component of
velocity between adjacent control volumes is naturally maintained. Eymard & Sonier
(1994) and Fung et al. (1992) showed the distinct advantages of the CVFE method
in honoring mass conservation. Durlofsky (1994) also discussed the accuracy issues
regarding CVFE approximations to Darcy velocities.
7.6.4 Summary
In this chapter we have shown some numerical experiments with three coupled mod-
els: FCM, FEAST and ICM. Simple rock compressibility models and Eclipse (2003a)
are used to evaluate and validate FCM. For the examples considered, FCM produces
correct results although it is still subject to the B-B restrictions. ICM with all the
coupling terms are basically the same as FCM. We showed that neglecting the cou-
pling terms in ICM will introduce errors, which can be signicant in heterogeneous
cases. FEAST includes a stabilization method, and we demonstrated its ability to
circumvent the B-B condition, and eliminate the pressure oscillations even if the B-B
condition is violated. We identied one example where pressure oscillations occur
while using ICM and FCM, but improved stability is shown by FEAST. There is one
limitation in the current FEAST framework. So far we consider the nite element
block to be the same as the control volume for the nite dierence module, and this
causes local mass conservation errors. The global mass conservation errors are how-
ever small. This limitation can be avoided by using CVFE grids, where the nite
element grid and the control volume for the nite dierence module are staggered
(Stone et al. 2000).
Chapter 8
Conclusions and Recommendations
8.1 Conclusions
1. The general system of equations is derived for water/oil/solid systems. Re-
formulation of the pressure and saturation equations from the mass balance
equations is also presented
2. The saddle point problem is identied in the coupled geomechanics and reser-
voir uid ow system. The saddle point problem is subject to the Babu ska-
Brezzi condition, otherwise pressure oscillations will occur. The B-B condition
requires dierent order interpolations between pressure and displacement. Spa-
tial pressure oscillations are shown for the consolidation problem with equal
order interpolations of pressure and displacement.
3. Two new formulations are developed for the consolidation problems: a pressure-
displacement formulation and a pressure-velocity-displacement formulation. Sta-
bilized methods with weighted-residual structures are built into these formula-
tions. A space-time concept is developed for these formulations and the discon-
tinuous Galerkin in time method is used.
4. Stabilized approaches exhibit signicant advantages in improving stability. Ex-
amples of consolidation problems have shown the advantages of pressure-displac-
125
126 CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
ement and pressure-velocity-displacement formulations. The pressure-velocity-
pressure formulation includes a newly developed stabilized mixed nite element
method, which has local mass conservation properties while using discontinu-
ous pressure variables. However the continuity in the nodal velocities acts to
smooth the velocity prole, which is physically incorrect.
5. We discussed the existing coupled approaches, then proposed a new framework
for coupling which includes a stabilized nite element method. In this new
framework, the force balance equations and the pressure equation are solved by
the stabilized nite element method, while the saturation equations are solved
by the upstream weighted control volume nite dierence method. This frame-
work maintains the traditional nite element method in geomechanics and al-
lows the use of the control volume nite dierence method for reservoir uid
ow.
6. We developed three coupled approaches: the proposed approach with stabilized
nite element approach (FEAST), the fully coupled approach (FCM) and the
iteratively coupled approach (ICM). Simple rock compressibility models using
ideal boundary conditions are used to evaluate the coupled models. The re-
sults showed rock compressibility models can give fairly reasonable predictions
for compaction drives. However these are subject to the restrictions of ideal
boundary conditions, which rarely exist in practice.
7. Eclipse (2003a) is used to validate FCM, and the two codes showed fairly good
matches.
8. ICM and FCM predict the same results because they are solving the same
equations. However neglecting the coupling terms can lead to signicant errors,
especially with heterogeneous permeability elds.
9. ICM is exible, modular and simple, compared to FCM and FEAST. Care needs
to be taken when applying it for large scale simulation. The coupling terms
in the equations and the porosity variation are both important in iteratively
coupled modelings.
8.2. RECOMMENDATIONS 127
10. Reasonable matches between FEAST, FCM and ICM are obtained for the pri-
mary depletion case considered here, however some dierences were demon-
strated for waterooding cases. This is mainly due to the fact that, in the
current version of FEAST, we consider the mass balance control volume to
be the same as the nite element grids, which involves averaging of the nodal
pressures into the element center. Therefore there are errors in local mass con-
servation. We demonstrated the distribution of local mass conservation errors,
and found that the majority of the errors are located around the wells and along
the water front. The global mass conservation errors are small.
11. Although lack of local mass conservation is a limitation of the current version
of FEAST module, it exhibits great advantages in avoiding pressure oscillations
in reservoir problems in cases where the B-B condition is violated. We showed
one example where spatial pressure oscillations were observed using FCM and
ICM, but FEAST improves the spatial stability dramatically.
8.2 Recommendations
1. CVFE type grids are suggested in the FEAST framework. The CVFE method
has good properties of local mass conservation, and it can be naturally applied
to unstructured grid systems.
2. More studies should be performed to examine existing rock compressibility mod-
els. Guidelines for their applicability will be useful.
3. No attempt was made to extend the stabilized mixed nite element (the pressure-
velocity-displacement formulation) to multiphase systems. Completely discon-
tinuous methods are suggested for this purpose.
4. Most of the examples studied in this work were small and simple. Realistic
eld scale problems have to be considered to identify possible problems with
the stabilized approaches.
128 CHAPTER 8. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
5. Utilizing the three-dimensional stabilized nite element classes and programs
developed in this thesis, extending FEAST from two-dimensional to three-
dimensional is suggested.
Nomenclature
A Assembly operator
B Formation volume factor
b Reciprocal formation volume factor
c
f
Fluid compressibility
c
v
Consolidation coecient
D Stress-strain relationship matrix
D Depth
E Youngs modulus
f External force
G Shear modulus
g Gravity vector
h Thickness
h
e
Characteristic element length
I Identity matrix
k Permeability tensor
k
r
Relative permeability
K Bulk modulus
K Stiness matrix (Eq. 4.4)
L, S Corresponding stabilization matrix (Eq. 4.4)
L(, ) Energy form (Section 3.1)
L, L Dierential operator
m Transpose of row vector [1,1,1,0,0,0]
m
cp
Mass gain of component c in phase p through phase change
129
130 NOMENCLATURE
N Shape function
p Pressure
P
c
Capillary pressure
Q Coupling matrix (Eq. 4.4)
q ow rate of water/oil per unit volume at standard conditions
r Radius
' Real space
S Saturation
t Time
u Displacement
v Darcys velocity
v Interstitial velocity
w Weighting function
A Mass fraction
Space-time domain
|, T, J, Q Weighting function space
Greek
Porosity
Density
Poissons ratio
Fluid viscosity
vol
Volumetric strain
Strain tensor
Stress tensor
, Lames constants
Stabilization coecient
Domain of the problem domain
Boundary of the problem domain
NOMENCLATURE 131
Scalar factor
Subscripts
c Component c
f Fluid
i, j, k, l Integer indices
n At time step level n
o Oil
p Phase p
r Rock
s Solid
stab Stabilized formulation
w Water/Well
0 Initial
Superscripts
h Finite dimensional nite element space
e Elementwise
Acronyms
B-B condition Babu ska-Brezzi condition
CVFE Control Volume Finite Element
DG Discontinuous Galerkin
FCM Fully Coupled Model with no stabilizations (page 93).
FE Finite Element
FD Finite Dierence
132 NOMENCLATURE
FEAST Finite Element coupled model with A STabilization (page 93).
GLS Galerkin/Least-Squares
ICM Iteratively Coupled Model with no stabilizations (page 93).
MFE Mixed Finite Element
SUPG Streamline Upwind Petrov-Galerkin
TVD Total Variation Diminishing
Bibliography
Alejano Monge, L.R., Oyanguren, P.R. and Fuente, R.D.L.: Method to predict nal
subsidence basins by means of a nite dierence computer code Proceedings
of the 1995 5th International Symposium on Land Subsidence, Hague, Neth.
IAHS Publication (International Association of Hydrological Sciences) n 234
1995. IAHS, Wallingford, Engl. 251-258.
Allen, D.R.: Physical changes of reservoir properties caused by subsidence and re-
pressurizing operations, Wilmington Field, California, JPT (1968) 23-29.
Allen, D.R.: Environmental aspects of oil producing operations-Long Beach, Cali-
fornia, paper SPE 3450, February, 1972.
Aziz, K.: Reservoir Simulation Notes, Stanford University, 1997.
Aziz, K. and Settari, A.: Petroleum Reservoir Simulation, Applied Science Publishers
Ltd., London, 1979.
Babu ska, I: Error bounds for nite element methods, Numer. Math., (1971) 16,
322-333.
Bear, Jacob: Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Media, American Elsevier, New York,
1972.
Bevillon, D. and Masson, R.: Stability and convergence analysis of partially coupled
scheme for geomechanical-reservoir simulations, presented at European Confer-
ence of the Mathematics of Oil Recovery, Baveno, Italy, September, 2000.
133
134 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Biot, M.A.: General theory of three-dimensional consolidation, J. Appl. Phys.,
(1941) 12, 155-164.
Biot, M.A.: Consolidation settlement under a rectangular load, J. Appl. Phys.,
(1941) 12, 426-430.
Biot, M.A.: Theory of elasticity and consolidation for a porous anisotropic solid,
J. Appl. Phys., (1955) 26, 182-185.
Biot, M.A.: General solutions of the equations of elasticity and consolidation for a
porous material, J. Appl. Phys., (1956) 27, 240-253.
Biot, M.A.: Theory of deformation of a porous viscoelastic anisotropic solid, J.
Appl. Phys., (1956) 27, 452-469.
Brezzi, F.: On the existence, uniqueness and approximation of saddle-point problems
arising from Lagrange multipliers, RAIRO Anal. Num er. 8(R-2), 1974, 129-151.
Brezzi, F. and Douglas, J.: Stabilized mixed methods for the Stokes problem,
Numer. Math., (1988) 53, 225-236.
Brezzi, F. and Fortin, M.: Mixed and Hybrid Finite Element Methods, Springer Ser.
Comput. Math. 15, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1991.
Brooks, A.N. and Hughes, T.J.R.: Streamline upwind Petrov-Galerkin formulations
for convection dominated ows with particular emphasis on the incompressible
Navier-Stokes equations, Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg., (1982) 32, 199-259.
Celia, M.A., Russell, T.F., Herrera, E. and Ewing, R.E.: An Eulerian-Lagrangian lo-
calized adjoint method for the advection-diusion equation, Advances in Water
Resources, (1990) 13, 187-206.
Chen, H.Y. and Teufel, L.W.: Coupling uid-ow and geomechanics in dual-porosity
modeling of naturally fractured reservoirs, paper SPE 38884 presented at the
SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in San Antonio, Texas,
5-8 October 1997.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 135
Chen, H.Y., Teufel, L.W. and Lee, R.L: Coupled uid ow and geomechanics in
reservoir study - 1. theory and governing equations, paper SPE 30752 presented
at the SPE Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition held in Dallas, Texas, 22-
25 October, 1995.
Chavent, G., and Jare, J.: Mathematical Models and Finite Elements for Reservoir
Simulation, North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1986.
Chin, L.Y. and Boade, R.R.: Full-eld 3D nite element subsidence model for
Ekosk, 3rd North Sea Chalk Symposium, Copenhagen, 1990
Chin, L.Y., and Prevost, J.H.: Numerical simulation of three-dimensional reservoir
compaction under waterood conditions, paper presented at the Fifth North
Sea Joint Chalk Research Symposium, Reims, France, October 7-9, 1996.
Chin, L.Y., Raghavan, R. and Thomas, L.K.: Fully-coupled geomechanics and uid-
ow analysis of wells with stress-dependent permeability, paper SPE 48857
presented at the 1998 SPE International Conference and Exhibition in China
held in Beijing, China, 2-6 November 1998.
Christian, J.T. and Boehmer, J.W.: Plane strain consolidation by nite elements,
J. Soil Mech. Found. Div. ASCE, (1970) 96(SM4), 1435-57.
Cook, C.C., and Jewell, S.: Reservoir simulation in a North Sea reservoir experienc-
ing signicant compaction drive, paper SPE 29132, presented at the 13th SPE
Symposium on Reservoir Simulation held in San Antonio, TX, 12-15 February
1995.
Darlow, B.L., R.E. Ewing and M.F. Wheeler: Mixed nite element method for
miscible displacement problems in porous media, SPE J., (1984), 391-398.
Dean, R.H.: A poroelastic multicomponent reservoir simulator, unpublished.
Dongarra, J., Lumsdaine, A., Pozo, R. and Remington, K.A.: IML++ V.1.2, it-
erative methods library reference guide, National Institute of Standards and
Technology, April 1996.
136 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Douglas, J.Jr.: The numerical solution of miscible displacement in porous media,
Computational Methods in Nonlinear Mechanics J.T. Oden(ed.), North Holland
Publishing Co., New York City (1980) 225-238.
Durlofsky, L.J.: A triangle based mixed nite element - nite volume technique for
modeling two phase ow through porous media, J. Comp. Phys., April 1993,
105, 2, 252-266.
Durlofsky, L.J.: Accuracy of mixed and control volume nite element approximations
to Darcy velocity and related quantities, Water Resources Research, (1994) 30,
965-973.
ECLIPSE 2003a, Schlumberger GeoQuest, 2002.
Franca, L.P., S.L. Frey and Hughes, T.J.R.: Stabilized nite element methods: I.
Application to the advective-diusive model, Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg.,
95 (1992) 253-276.
Franca, L.P., Hughes, T.J.R. and Stenberg, S.: Stabilized nite element methods for
Stokes problem, in M.D. Gunzburger, R.A. Nicolaides (Eds.), Incommpressible
Computational Fluid Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993,
87-107.
Fung, L.S.-K., Hebert, A.D. and Nghiem, L.X.: Reservoir Simulation with a Control-
Volume Finite-Element Method, SPE Reservoir Engineering, August 1992, 349-
357.
Geertsma, J.: The eect of uid pressure decline on volumetric changes of porous
rocks, Trans. AIME, (1957) 210, 331-340.
Ghaboussi, J. and Wilson, E.L.: Flow of compressible uid in porous elastic media,
Int. J. Num. Meth. Engrg., (1973) 5, 419-42.
Gutierrez, M. and Hansteen, H.: Fully coupled analysis of reservoir compaction and
subsidence, paper SPE 28900 presented at the European Petroleum Conference
held in London, U.K., 25-27 October 1994.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 137
Gutierrez, M. and Lewis, R.W.: The role of geomechanics in reservoir simulation,
paper SPE/ISRM 47392 presented at SPE/ISRM Eurock98 held in Trondhelm,
Norway, 8-10 July 1998.
Halatchev, R., Andreev, G and Gabeva, D.: Entropy approach - an alternative for
eective prediction of land subsidence from mining, Proceedings of the Fifth
International Symposium on Land Subsidence, Hague, October 1995, IAHS Publ.
no. 234
Hanse, K.S., Prats, M. and Chan, C.K.: Modeling of reservoir compaction and
surface subsidence at South Belridge, paper SPE 26074 presented at the 1993
SPE Western Regional Meething, Anchorage, AK, May 26-28.
Harari, I. and Hughes, T.J.R.: What are C and h?: Inequalities for the analysis and
design of nite element methods, Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg., (1992) 97,
157-192.
Hermansen, H., Thomas, L.K., Sylte, J.E., and Aasboe, B.T.: Twenty ve years of
Ekosk reservoir management, paper SPE 38927 presented at the 1997 SPE An-
nual Technical Conference and Exhibition held in San Antonio, Texas, October
5-8, 1997.
Hughes, T.J.R, Franca, L.P. & Balestra M.: A new nite element formulation for
computational uid dynamics: V. Circumventing the Babu ska-Brezzi condition:
A stable Petrov-Galerkin formulation of the Stokes problem accommodating
equal-order interpolations, Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg., (1986) 59, 85-
99.
Hughes, T.J.R.: The Finite Element Method, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New Jersey, 1987.
Hughes, T.J.R and Hulbert, G.M.: Space-time nite element methods for elasto-
dynamics: formulations and error estimates, Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg.,
(1988) 66, 339-363.
138 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hughes, T.J.R., Franca, L.P. and Hulbert, G.: A new nite element formulation
for computational uid dynamics: VIII. The Galerkin/Least-Squares method
for advective-diusive equations, Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg., (1989) 73,
173-189 .
Hughes, T.J.R., Hauke, G., Jansen, K. and Johan, Z.: Stabilized nite element
methods in uids: inspirations, orgins, status and recent developments(Hughes
eds), CIMNE, Barcelona (1994).
Hughes, T.J.R., Engel, G., Mazzei L. and Larson, M.G.: The Continuous Galerkin
Method Is Locally Conservative, J. Comp. Phys., (2000) 163, 467-488.
Koslo, D., Scott, R.F. and Scranton, J.: Finite element simulation of Wilmington
oil eld subsidence: II nonlinear modelling, Tectonophysics, (1980) 70, 159-183.
Koutsabeloulis, N.C, Smart, B.G.D., Bratvedt, K. and Buchholz, C.: A 3-D 3-phase
stress dependent reservoir simulator, paper SPE 37983 presented at the SPE
Reservoir Simulation Symposium in Dallas, TX, USA, 8-11 June 1997.
Koutsabeloulis, N.C. and Hope, S.A.: Coupled stress/uid/thermal multi-phase
reservoir simulation studies incorporating rock mechanics, paper SPE/ISRM
47393 presented at SPE/ISRM Eurock98 held in Trondhelm, Norway, 8-10 July,
1998
Lake, L.W.: Enhanced Oil Recovery, Prentice Hall, Englewood Clis, New Jersey,
1989.
Lesaint, P., Raviart, P.: On a nite element method for solving the neutron trans-
port equation, Mathematical Aspects of Finite Elements in Partial Dierential
Equations, C. De Boor (ed.), Academic Press, New York, 89-123 (1974).
Lewis, R.W., Roberts, G.K. and Zienkiewicz, O.C.: A non-linear ow and deforma-
tion analysis of consolidation problems, Numerical Methods in Geomechanics,
(1976) 2, ASCE, New York, 1106-1118.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 139
Lewis, R.W. and Sukirman, Y.: Finite element modelling for simulating the surface
subsidence above a compacting hydrocarbon reservoir, Int. J. Numer. Anal.
Meth. Geomechanics, (1993) 18, 619-639.
Lewis, R.H. and Schreer, B.A., The Finite Element Method in the Static and Dy-
namic Deformation and Consolidation of Porous Media, Second Edition, John
Wiley & Sons, New York, 1998.
Masud, A. and Hughes, T.J.R.: A stabilized mixed nite element method for Darcy
ow, to appear in Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg., 2002.
Maury, V., Piau, J.M. and Halle, G.: Subsidence Induced by Water Injection in
Water Sensitive Reservoir Rocks: The Example of Ekosk, paper SPE 36890
presented at the 1996 SPE European Petroleum Conference held in Milan, Italy
22-24 October 1996.
Minko, S., Stone, C.M., Arguello, J.G., Bryant, S., Eaton, J., Peszynska, M.,
Wheeler, M.: Staggered in time coupling of reservoir ow simulation and ge-
omechanical deformation: step 1 one-way coupling, Proceedings of the 1999
SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium, Houston, TX., Feb. 14-17, 1999.
Murad, M.A. and Loula, A.F.D.: Improved accuracy in nite element analysis of
Biots consolidation problem, Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Eng., (1992) 95, 359-
382.
Murad, M.A. and Loula, A.F.D.: On stability and convergence of nite element
approximation of Biots consolidation problem, Int. J. Numer. Eng., (1994) 37,
645-668.
Muskat, M.: The Flow of Homogeneous Fluids Through Porous Media, McGraw-Hill
Book Co., Inc., New York (1937).
Osorio, J.G., Chen, H.Y. and Teufel, L.W.: Fully coupled uid-ow/geomechanics
simulation of stress-sensitive reservoirs, paper SPE 38023 presented at the
Reservoir Simulation Symposium held in Dallas, Texas, 8-11 June 1997.
140 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Osorio, J.G., Chen, H.Y. and Teufel, L.W.: Numerical simulation of the impact
of ow-induced geomechanical response on the productivity of stress-sensitive
reservoirs, paper SPE 51929 presented at the Reservoir Simulation Symposium
held in Dallas, Texas, 8-11 June 1997.
Peaceman, D.W.: Fundamentals of Numerical Reservoir Simulation, Elsevier, Ams-
terdam, 1977.
Peaceman, D.W.: Interpretation of Well-Block Pressures in Numerical Reservoir
Simulation, SPE J. June 1978, 183-194.
Pozo, R., Remington, K.A. and Lumsdaine, A.: SparseLib++ v.1.5, Sparse Matrix
Class Library Reference Guide,, National Institute of Standards and Technol-
ogy, April 1996.
Pyrah, I.C.: Elasto-Plastic Analysis in Geotechnical Engineering Using Finite Dif-
ferences, Computational Plasticity: Models, Software and Applications, edited
by D.R.J. Owen, E. Hinton, and E. Onate, 1607-1620.
Riviere, B. and Wheeler, M.F.: A Discontinuous Galerkin Method Applied to Non-
linear Parabolic Equations, in B. Cockburn, G. E. Karniadakis, C.-W. Shu
(eds.), Lecture Notes in Computational Science and Engineering, 11, Springer-
Verlag Berlin, 2000.
Eymard, R., and Sonier, F.: Mathematical and Numerical Properties of Control-
Volume, Finite-Element Scheme for Reservoir Simulation, SPE Reservoir En-
gineering, November 1994, 283-289.
Ruddy, I., Andersen, M. A., Pattillo, P.D., Bishlawl, M. and Foged, N.: Rock Com-
pressibility, Compaction, and Subsidence in a High-Porosity Chalk Reservoir: A
Case Study of Valhall Field, JPT, July 1989.
Rumbaugh, J., Blaha, M., Premerhani, W., Eddy, F., and Lorensen, W: Object-
Oriented Modeling and Design, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Clis, New Jersey,
1991.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 141
Schiman, R.L., Chen, A.T.F. and Jordan, J.C.: An analysis of consolidation theo-
ries, J. Soil Mech. Found. Div. (1969) ASCE, 96(SM1), 285-312.
Schreer, B.A., Lewis, R.W. and Norris, V.A.: A case study of surface subsidence
of the polesine area, Int. J. Num. Anal. Meth. Geomech., (1977), 1, 377-86.
Settari, A. and Price, H.S.: Simulation of hydraulic fracturing in low permeability
reservoirs, SPE J., (April 1984), 141-152.
Settari, A. and Mourits, F.M.: Coupling of geomechanics and reservoir simulation
models, Comp. Methods and Advances in Geomechanics, Siriwardane & Zeman,
eds., Balkema, Rotterdam, (1994), 2151-2158.
Settari, A. and Mourits, F.M.: A coupled reservoir and geomechanical modeling
system, SPE J. (September 1998), 219-226.
Settari, A. and Walters, D.A., Advances in coupled geomechanical and reservoir
modeling with applications to reservoir compaction, paper SPE 51927 presented
at the 1999 SPE Reservoir Simulation Symposium held in Houston, Texas, 14-17
February 1999.
Small, J.C., Booker, J.R. and Davis, E.H.: Elastoplastic consolidation of soil, Int.
J. Solids Struct., (1976), 12, 431-448.
Stone, T., Bowen, G., Papanastasiou, P. and Fuller, J.: Fully coupled geomechanics
in a commercial reservoir simulator, paper SPE 65107 presented at the 2000
SPE European petroleum conference held in Paris, France, 24-25 October 2000.
Sulak, R.M. and Danielsen, J.: Reservoir Aspects of Ekosk Subsidence, JPT, July
1989, 709-716.
Taylor, R.L and Iding, R.: Application of Extended Variational Principles to Fi-
nite Element Analysis, Variational methods in engineering, 1, Southampton
University Press, 1973, 2.54-2.67.
Terzaghi, K.: Theoretical Soil Mechanics, Wiley, New York, 1943.
142 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Timoshenko, S. and Goodier, J.N.: Theory of Elasticity (3rd ed.), McGraw-Hill, New
York, 1969.
Tortike, W.S.: Numerical Simulation of Thermal, Multiphase Fluid Flow in an Elasto-
plastic Deforming Oil Reservoir, PhD thesis, University of Alberta, Petroleum
Engineering, 1991.
Trangenstein, J.A. and Bell, J.B.: Mathematical Structure of Compositional Reser-
voir Simulation, SIAM J. Sci. Stat. Comput., (1989) 10, 817-845.
Trangenstein, J.A. and Bell, J.B.: Mathematical Structure of the Black-Oil Model
for Petroleum Reservoir Simulation, SIMA J. Appl. Math., (1989) 49, 749-783.
Varoglu, E. and Finn, W.D.L.: Finite Elements Incorporating Characteristics for
One-Dimensional Diusion-Convection Equation, J. Comp. Phys., (1980) 34,
371-389.
Verma, S.: Flexible Grids for Reservoir Simulation, Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University,
1996.
Vermeer, P.A. and Verruijt, A.: An accuracy condition for consolidation by nite
elements, Int. J. Numer. Anal. Meth. Geomechanics (1981) 6, 1-14.
Verruijt, A.: Elastic storage in aquifers, Flow Through Porous Media. R.J.M. De
Wiest (ed.) Academic, San Diego. California (1969) 331-376.
Verruijt, A.: Computational Geomechanics, Kluwer Academic Publishers, London,
1995.
Wan, J.: Coupled Geomechanics and Reservoir Flow Package (code, data le and
users manual) 2002, 2002.
Wang, H., Liang, D., Ewing, R.E., Lyons, S.L. and Qin, G: An Approximation
to Miscible Fluid Flows in Porous Media with Point Sources and Sinks by an
Eulerian-Lagrangian Localized Adjoint Method and Mixed Finite Element Meth-
ods, SIAM J. Sci. Comput., (2000) 22 No. 2, 561-581.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 143
Yokoo, Y., Yamagata, K. and Nagaoka, H.: Finite element method applied to Biots
consolidation theory, Soils and Foundation, Japanese Soc. Soil Mech. Found.
Engng, (1971) 11( 10), 29-46.
Zienkiewicz, O.C., Humpheson, C. and Lewis, R.W.: A unied approach to soil
mechanics problems including plasticity and visco-plasticity, (1977), Finite El-
ements in Geomechanics, Wiley, London, Ch. 4.
Zienkiewicz, O.C.: Basic formulation of static and dynamic behavior of soil and
other porous material, Numerical Methods in Geomechanics, J. B. Martins (ed.),
Springer-Verlag, Boston (1982), 39-57.
Zienkiewicz, O.C.: Coupled problems and their numerical solution, in Numerical
Methods in Coupled Systems, chap. 1, 35-68, Wiley, Chichester, 1984.
Zienkiewicz, O.C. and Shiomi, T.: Dynamic behavior of saturated porous media:
the generalised Biot formulation and its numerical solution, Int. J. Num. Anal.
Meth. Geomech., (1984) 8, 71-96.
Zienkiewicz, O.C., Qu, S., Taylor, R.L. and Nakazawa, S.: The Patch test for mixed
formulations, Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng., (1986) 23, 1873-1883.
Zienkiewicz, O.C. and Taylor, R.L.: The Finite Element Method, Volume 2, chap. 11,
404-437, Mcgraw-Hill Book Company, London, 1988.
Zienkiewicz, O.C., Chan, A.H.C., Pastor, M., Paul, D.K. and Shiomi, T.: Static
and dynamic behaviour of soil: a rational approach to quantitative solutions, I.
Fully saturated problems., Proc. R. Soc. Lond., A 429, 285-309.
Zienkiewicz, O.C. and Wu, J.: Incompressibility without tears - How to avoid restric-
tions of mixed formulation, Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng., (1991) 32, 1189-1203.
Zienkiewicz, O.C., Huang, M. and Pastor, M.: Computational soil dynamics-a new
algorithm for drained and undrained conditions, Computer Methods and Ad-
vances in Geomechanics, Siriwardance, Zaman (eds), Balkema: Rotterdam, 1994,
47-59.
144 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Appendix A
Possible Approaches of Improving
the Accuracy of Stress Calculations
For bilinear displacement elements, the stress calculated from nodal displacements is
actually piecewise constant. A simple average of the discontinuous stress associated
with nodes will lead to inaccuracies. Therefore we need a more systematic way to
improve the accuracy.
A.1 Averaging Technique
This technique was introduced by Hughes (1987). It can serve as a smoothing pro-
cedure while checkerboard oscillations occur. Instead of solving for a global mapping
matrix, the nodes can be divided into: inner nodes, non-corner boundary nodes, ex-
ternal corner nodes and internal corner nodes, described in Fig. A.1. Dierent nodal
variables can be solved in a stepwise fashion. The procedures are summarized in the
following based on Section 4.4.1 of Hughes (1987)
A.1.1 Step 1: Naive Way
At rst, use a naive way to propagate all the internal nodal values. The naive way
means averaging the discontinuous stresses connected to the nodes. The internal
145
146 APPENDIX A. IMPROVING STRESS CALCULATIONS
Internal Node
Noncorner
Boundary Node
External
Corner Node
Figure A.1: Example node description of averaging technique
nodes can be represented by this approach, but it is not the case for other nodes.
A.1.2 Step 2: Non-corner Boundary Nodes
The values calculated by the naive way are actually the mean stresses between the
non-corner boundary nodes and the inner nodes directly connected to them Therefore
a simple linear interpolation may work, that is
bc
= 2
bc
inner
(A.1)
where
bc
is the non-corner boundary nodal value and
inner
is the value of the inner
node directly connected to it.
A.1.3 Step 3: External Corner Nodes
Lets call the corner node
A
and the other three nodes
B
,
C
,
D
. Linear interpo-
lation and extrapolation is employed through nodes B, C, D, i.e.,
A
=
L
B
B
+

L
C
C
+

L
D
D
L
(A.2)
A.2. BOUNDARY PROPAGATING TECHNIQUE 147
L
B
= L
B
+ (y
C
y
D
)x
A
+ (x
D
x
C
)y
A
(A.3)
L
C
= L
C
+ (y
D
y
B
)x
A
+ (x
B
x
D
)y
A
(A.4)
L
D
= L
D
+ (y
B
y
C
)x
A
+ (x
C
x
B
)y
A
(A.5)
L
B
= x
C
y
D
x
D
y
C
; (A.6)
L
C
= x
D
y
B
x
B
y
D
; (A.7)
L
D
= x
B
y
C
x
C
y
B
; (A.8)
A.2 Boundary Propagating Technique
There is an accuracy issue associated with Step 1 of the averaging technique intro-
duced in Section A.1. A rst order continuity C
1
of the nodal stresses is assumed by
averaging the discontinuous stresses connected to the nodes. However this is not the
case for bilinear stresses, which only have C
0
continuity at element boundaries, that
is, the value on the element boundary is of zero-order continuous. We can view this
boundary propagating method as an inverse method for calculating element mean
stresses based on nodal stresses and boundary stresses.
In this technique, the prescribed boundaries are considered as the source of a
signal. Considering the piecewise constant stress values calculated from bilinear dis-
placements as the values on the element center. For quadrilateral elements, with
known stresses on three nodes, the stress on the remaining node can be calculated by
linear interpolation. With this method, we can calculate the nodal stresses adjacent
to the boundary stresses through the rst layer of grids connected to the boundaries.
The next layer of grids adjacent to the calculated layer can be similarly propagated.
In this way, all the nodal stresses can be calculated.
Fig. A.2 shows two kinds of nodes: known nodes (stress boundary nodes) and
unknown nodes. Use
center
to denote the element-centered stress, B, C, D to denote
the known stress nodes and A to denote the unknown stress node.
A
can be obtained
by
N
A
A
=
center
N
B
B
N
C
C
N
D
D
(A.9)
148 APPENDIX A. IMPROVING STRESS CALCULATIONS
In this way, we can determine The unknown node in block 1. After block 1 is deter-
mined, the blocks with index 2 can be determined using the same algorithm. Similarly
layers of blocks can be determined sequentially.
Known Node
Unknown Node
1
2
2
3
4
3
3 4
4
5 6
5
Figure A.2: Example node description of boundary propagating technique
Assume there are n m blocks in a 2-D problem and n m l blocks in a 3-
D problem. The internal unknown nodes can be determined if there are more than
n+m+1 known nodes in the 2-D problem and more than nml+nl+ml+nm+n+m+l
known nodes in the 3-D problem. This requires that stresses are prescribed on at least
two boundary faces in the 2-D problem and three boundary faces in the 3-D problem.
Appendix B
Well Model of FEAST
In standard nite dierence reservoir simulators, the pressure is block-centered and
the block pressure can not be assumed to be equal to the wellbore pressure. These
two pressures can be related through a well model. Peaceman (1983) developed the
following basic well model under the condition of radial ow around the well.
q =
2kh
_
ln
r
0
r
w
+ s
_ (p
block
p
bh
) (B.1)
r
0
= 0.28
[(k
x
/k
y
)
1/2
y
2
+ (k
y
/k
x
)
1/2
x
2
]
1/2
(k
x
/k
y
)
1/4
+ (k
y
/k
x
)
1/4
(B.2)
where r
0
is the equivalent wellbore radius, r
w
is the wellbore radius and p
bh
is the
well bottomhole pressure. For square blocks, r
0
is 0.208x (Peaceman 1983).
In the current version of FEAST, the pressure equation is solved by the stabilized
nite element method and pressures are computed at the nodes. If use we p
node
to
denote a nodal pressure on the block containing a well and r
node
to denote the distance
from the node to the well center, the well bottomhole pressure can be calculated
directly if radial ow is assumed around the well. The layout of r
w
, r
0
and r
node
is
shown in Fig. B.1. The relationship between the ow rate, r
node
and r
w
for the nite
149
150 APPENDIX B. WELL MODEL OF FEAST
FE Node
Location of
FD Unknown
r
0
r
w
r
node
Figure B.1: Description of r
w
, r
0
and r
node
in a well block
element model can be expressed as
q =
2kh
_
ln
r
node
r
w
+ s
_ (p
node
p
bh
) (B.3)
Therefore r
0
is not needed. In the implementation, p
node
can be considered as an
average of the four nodal pressures.
A simple 2-D primary depletion case was used to demonstrate the applicability
of Eq. B.3. The size of the reservoir is 1600 by 1600 by 100 ft
3
. The isotropic
permeability is 500 md, the oil viscosity is 1.51 cp, the initial pressure is 5200 psi,
and the porosity is 0.22. A producer is located in the center with a constant ow rate
of 20000 STB/Day. In the nite element model, 21 by 21 grid was used and pressure
boundary values that vary in time are calculated from the analytical solution (Eq.
B.4) for comparison purposes. The analytical solution (Muskat 1937) for innite
acting radial ow is
p(r, t) = p
i
q
4kh
_
Ei(
c
t
r
2
4kt
)
(B.4)
where Ei is the exponential integral function. In Fig. B.2, the analytical pressure
distribution at t = 95 days is shown. p
bh,FE
is the bottomhole pressure calculated by
Eq. B.3 in the nite element model, p
block,FD
is the block pressure on r
0
(Peaceman
1983), and p
node,FE
is the pressure on the nite element node. We can see that p
bh,FE
151
and p
node,FE
are very close to the analytical solution. The slight dierences between
the numerical and the analytical results are due to the discretization errors. Hence,
Eq. B.3 is a reasonable model to relate nodal pressures and bottomhole pressure in
our nite element model.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140
4200
4300
4400
4500
4600
4700
4800
p
bh, FE
p
block, FD
p
node, FE
r
w
r
0
r
node
Distance to well center (ft)
P
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
p
s
i
)
Analytical solution
Figure B.2: Pressure distribution around the well
152 APPENDIX B. WELL MODEL OF FEAST
Appendix C
Software Design
The program developed for this thesis (Wan 2002) includes FEAST framework, Fully
Coupled Model (FCM) and Iteratively Coupled Model (ICM) described in Chapter
7. Written in standard C++, the package includes a variety of elements and models
which have been mentioned in the thesis. The overall design has been rened over
numerous iterations, either in a top-down or bottom-up fashion. So far the package
has more than 120 source les, with more than 15000 lines of code.
The discussion of software design follows the following steps:
Top-Level: Lay out the top-level design of dierent model classes, and how the
nite element modules are interfaced with nite dierence modules..
Mid-Level: Discuss the design of mid-level components, such as mesh, nodes,
elements, shape functions, and equation models.
Libraries: Describe the utility functions and linear solvers.
Directory and Files: A list of description of important classes.
The classes and their relationship can be graphically illustrated using Rumbaugh
notation (Rumbaugh et al. 1991). The classes are represented by a rectangle with the
class name inside. The relationship between the classes are represented by symbols
or lines. Following Rumbaugh notation, we can categorize these relationships into
three types:
153
154 APPENDIX C. SOFTWARE DESIGN
1. knowsa: A knows-a relationship is represented by a line between two rectan-
gles to show that an object of one class knows about that of another class.
2. isa: The is-a relationship is represented by a line with a triangle between the
classes. It is used in the case of inheritance, when an instance of one derived
class can be treated as an instance of its parent class. All of these classes which
share a common parent class are shown by lines connecting to the base of the
triangle.
3. has-a: The has-a relationship is represented by a diamond at an aggregate
class and a line from the diamond to the classes of the component objects. An
aggregate class is made up of many component objects of other classes.
C.1 Top-Level
The connections and ownership of the most basic models are described in Fig. C.1.
We are going to focus on the structure within the nite element model, and show
SimSolidIF
CpSimSolid CpSimSolidPres
FEEquaCoupled
SimSolidImplBase FEEquaSolid
Simulation
Reservoir
FEEquaFluid
Mesh
SMFE
FEEqua
Local Global
ShapeN
Figure C.1: Structure of Top-Level Models
C.2. MID-LEVEL 155
how it interfaces with the nite dierence model. Here we are going to use only
two classes, Reservoir and Simulation, to represent the nite dierence reservoir
simulator part, and the rest of the classes are nite element models. A pure vir-
tual abstract class SimSolidIF is built as an interface between the Finite Dierence
Modules (FDM) and the Finite Element Modules(FEM), and it is owned by the
Simulation class. All of the necessary functions for coupling are written in Sim-
SolidIF. SimSolidImplBase is derived class from SimSolidIF, which has objects,
such as Mesh for grid handling and FEEquaSolid as a force balance equation model
builder to implement the Jacobian and right-hand side. The pure virtual functions
within SimSolidIF are instantiated in SimSolidImplBase. There are two derived
classes from SimSolidImplBase, CpSimSoid for solving force balance equations
and CpSimSolidPres for solving force balance and pressure equations. In the -
nite element method, a dense matrix is built over an element then it is passed over
the global matrix. The classes circled by the rectangle named Local have models
for building the dense matrix and right-hand side, while the classes circled by the
rectangle named Global have all the models for building and handling the global
matrix and right-hand side. FEEqua is the base class for building the element dense
matrix, which will be assembled into the global Jacobian matrix. FEEquaSolid is
derived from FEEqua. FEEquaCoupled has two ancestors: FEEequaSolid and
FEEquaFluid.
C.2 Mid-Level
C.2.1 Mesh
The Mesh object consists of a list of Nodes, Elements and Sides. The Element
can be hexahedral, quadrilateral or triangular, therefore the corresponding Side is
quadrilateral or line respectively. An Element object includes a list of Nodes on
this element, and a list of Sides (also called faces of this element). A Side object
has a list of elements connected to the side, with maximum number of 2, and a list
of nodes. Finally a Node object has a list of Elements attached to it. In this way,
a full connectivity list is built up for any type of grid, no matter if it is structured or
unstructured. The relationship between gridding related classes is illustrated in Fig.
C.2.
Mesh
Side
Element
Node
Figure C.2: Gridding Modules
C.2.2 Shape Functions
Shape functions are design in a hierarchical structure. All of the one-dimensional,
two-dimensional and three-dimensional classes are derived from ShapeN, and the
rst-order elements and second-order elements are dierentiated by rectangles in Fig.
C.3.
ShapeN
Line2
Line3
Triang3
Triang6
Quad4
Quad9
Hexa8
first-order
second-order
Figure C.3: Shape Function Modules
C.3. LIBRARIES AND SOLVERS 157
C.3 Libraries and Solvers
Two type of solvers are used for the calculations in this thesis. The rst one is a
commonly used skyline solver, a direct prole solver. The other one is a GMRES solver
in IML (Iterative Math Library) (Dongarra et al. 1996). IML is an iterative solver
package downloadable from http://math.nist.gov/iml++/. Another sparse matrix
library SparseLib++ (Pozo et al. 1996) supports the IML library. Sparselib++ can
be downloaded from http://math.nist.gov/sparselib++/.
C.4 File and Class Descriptions
C.4.1 Reservoir Simulator with Modication for Geomechan-
ical Coupling
simulation.h/.cpp:
main class to set up the Jacobian and the right-hand-side
splint.h/.cpp:
spline interpolation to give smooth curve
utility.h/.cpp:
utility functions
well.h/.cpp:
well model
reservoir.h/.cpp:
reservoir description and grid set up
block.h/.cpp:
properties for individual numerical block
C.4.2 nite element development of ICM, FCM, and FEAST
conversionFactor.h:
set up the standard conversion between SI and Field units.
dataset.h:
link list
element.h/.cpp:
description of nite element elements. It includes node and side information.
error.h/.cpp:
error handling
feast.h:
header of other include les
feastDef.h:
denition of some constants.
FEEqua.h/.cpp:
the base class of the nite element equation model
FEEquaCoupled2D.h/.cpp:
two dimensional coupled nite element equation model for solid and uid
FEEquaCoupled3D.h/.cpp:
three dimensional coupled nite element equation model for solid and uid
FEEquaFluid.h/.cpp:
uid properties manipulations
C.4. FILE AND CLASS DESCRIPTIONS 159
FEEquaSolid.h/.cpp:
inherited class from FEEqua, and the base class for 2D and 3D nite element
solve of the force balance equation.
FEEquaSolid2D.h/.cpp:
2D nite element solve of force balance equation
FEEquaSolid3D.h/.cpp:
3D nite element solve of force balance equation.
GenericMatrix.h/.cpp:
base class of general matrix manipulation
Hexa8.h/.cpp:
shape function of hexahedra.
IMLSpMatrix.h/.cpp:
a wrap up matrix of sparse matrix from the IML library. This class includes all
the nite element assembly algorithms for sparse matrices.
IMLVect.h/.cpp:
a wrap up vector of vector from the IML library.
Line2.h/.cpp:
bilinear line shape function
Line3.h/.cpp:
quadratic line shape function
LinSolver.h/.cpp:
linear solver based on skyline matrix, a direct solve.
LocalMatrix.h/.cpp:
nite element dense matrix element wise
localVect.h/.cpp:
nite element dense vector element wise
Material.h/.cpp:
solid material class
Node.h/.cpp:
a node of a nite element
NodeVect.h:
a link list of node object
Point.h:
a point with coordinates.
Quad4.h/.cpp:
bilinear quadrilateral shape function
Quad9.h/.cpp:
quadratic quadrilateral shape function
Quadrature.h/.cpp:
class to handle a random point of quadrature rule
ResFEA.h/.cpp:
reservoir view in nite element module
ShapeN.h/.cpp:
the base class of shape functions
Side.h/.cpp:
a nite element side, it is a quadrilateral for a hexahedral element, and a line
for a quadrilateral element
C.4. FILE AND CLASS DESCRIPTIONS 161
SimSolidIF.h:
a pure virtual base class of interface between feast and simulator
SimSolidImpBase.h/.cpp:
a derived class from SimSolidIF
SkMatrix.h:
a skyline matrix with all the assembly built in
Table.h/.cpp:
table search
Triang3.h/.cpp:
linear triangle shape function
Triang6.h/.cpp:
quadratic triangle shape function
UserData.h/.cpp:
a base class for user input data
Util.h/.cpp:
utility class
Vect.h:
a general vector class
SMFEq.h/.cpp:
equation model for stabilized mixed nite element method with bilinear ele-
ments
SMFEqdp.h/.cpp:
equation model for stabilized mixed nite element with quadratic velocity and
discontinuous bilinear pressure
SMFEqdp91.h/.cpp:
equation model for stabilized mixed nite element with quadratic velocity and
discontinuous pressure
CDQTwo.h/.cpp:
detailed equation model for pressure-displacement formulation method in 2D
FEPSQT.h/.cpp:
detailed equation model for pressure-displacement-velocity formulation
CDQT3D.h/.cpp:
detailed equation model for pressure-displacement formulation in 3D
CpSimSolid.h/.cpp:
drive class for iteratively coupled and fully coupled model
CpSimSolidPres.h/.cpp:
drive class for fully coupled feast method
For information about the input le format and program details, refer to the users
manual, which is included in the package (Wan 2002)

Stabilized Finite Element Methods For Coupled Geomechanics and Multiphase Flow

Hochgeladen von

Dokumentinformationen

Originalbeschreibung:

Originaltitel

Copyright

Verfügbare Formate

Dieses Dokument teilen

Dokument teilen oder einbetten

Freigabeoptionen

Stufen Sie dieses Dokument als nützlich ein?

Sind diese Inhalte unangemessen?

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

Stabilized Finite Element Methods For Coupled Geomechanics and Multiphase Flow

Hochgeladen von

Copyright:

Verfügbare Formate

STABILIZED FINITE ELEMENT METHODS FOR

COUPLED GEOMECHANICS AND MULTIPHASE FLOW

STB/Day) for waterooding case . . . 120

by the generalized Terzaghi

= 0, integration by parts leads to

(Franca et al. 1992) (4.13)

is the adjoint of L. The following table compares L

b = the local pressure element node/equation number;

L (Lewis & Schreer 1998, Settari & Walters 1999).

STB/Day) for waterooding case

Das könnte Ihnen auch gefallen