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ABSTRACT
Many physical processes in nature, whose correct understanding, prediction, and control are
important to people, are described by Partial Differential Algebraic Equation (PDAE) systems
as a set of Partial Differential, Ordinary Differential and Algebraic Equations. Multiphase
flow in porous media, as one of such physical process, has been the interest of many scientific
researchers especially in the field of reservoir engineering. For most PDAEs it is not possible
to find their exact solutions analytically as mathematical function. Therefore the only way to
solve PDAEs arising in scientific problems is to approximate their solutions numerically and
as first step Partial (and Ordinary) Differential Equations of a given PDAE should be
discretized with suitable technique into a set of nonlinear (or linear) equations. Different
discretization techniques such as finite volume, finite element and finite difference applicable
to numerical analysis of PDAE system governing multiphase flow in porous media have been
reviewed and compared in this paper by using several case studies.
KEYWORDS:
PDAE, Fractured Reservoir, Finite Volume, Finite Element, Simulation, Finite Difference
1. INTRODUCTION
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For most reservoirs, the equation of flow is Darcys law which is valid for laminar flow at low
Reynolds numbers and its mathematical expression as follow. For high rates of flow, such as
in gas reservoirs, Darcys law equations are modified to include turbulence terms.
When three immiscible fluids flow simultaneously through a porous medium the permeability
of the rock to each flowing phase depends on the interfacial tensions between the fluids and
the contact angles between the rocks and the fluids. For commonly encountered conditions the
permeability of the rock to each phase is independent of bulk fluid properties and of flow rate
(for laminar flow), and is a function of the fluid saturation only (Fluid saturation of a
particular fluid is the fraction of the pore space in a given section of porous media that is
occupied by that fluid):
Also because of surface tension and the curvature of the interfaces between the two fluids
within the small pores, the pressure in the non-wetting fluid is higher that the pressure in the
wetting phase and the difference between these two pressures is the capillary pressure, Pc:
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Some modified finite difference formulations have been proposed to overcome drawback of
this formulation to approximate multiphase flow in oil and gas reservoirs. For example Guo
and Wang (2005) proposed higher order of Taylor approximation for discretization of
governing PDE equation for fluid flow in porous media. Their proposal has considerable
effect in decrease of numerical dispersion however such modification can increase
computation time for reservoir simulation considerably. As another modification Yanosik et
al. (1972) proposed Nine Point Finite Difference Formulation which was further completed
by Kazemi et al. (1991) as split operator scheme:
Figure3: Conventional Five Point v.s. Nine Point Formulation for Finite Difference Method
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The difference between the Yanosik and McCracken scheme and the Split operator scheme is
the formulation of the pressure equation. In the split operator scheme the pressure in the (i,j)
grid block is tied to four north-south, east-west grid block pressures at present time level and
to four diagonal grid block pressure at the oil time level. However in Yanosik scheme, all nine
pressure points should be at the present time level (Kazemi, 1991). The Split Operator scheme
(Kazemi, 1991) was tested again for same reservoir and fluid data as used by Yanosik and
McCracken (1972) by using MATLAB. Figure4 shows the S w =0.4 contours (fronts) for
M=50 for a Water flooding [The mobility of a fluid is the effective relative permeability of
that fluid divided by its viscosity. For an injection scheme, the mobility ratio, M, is the ratio
of the mobility of the displacing fluid behind the flood front to that of the displaced fluid
ahead of the flood front]. Refer to Figure4 both conventional five-point and split operator
schemes exhibit grid orientation effects. The five point scheme yields a large difference
between the diagonal and the parallel grid saturation contours. However the diagonal and the
parallel grid fronts are closer together for the split operator scheme than for the conventional
five-point scheme.
R
Figure4: Saturation Contours at Sw=0.4 for the five point and split operator
Scheme in a water flooding problem
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Figure6: Relative Error in compare to Analytical Solution due to local mesh refinement
Here, u represents a vector of states and f represents the corresponding flux vector. In finite
volume method spatial domain can be sub-divided into finite volumes or cells with following
volume integral for cell i with volume v i :
R
On integrating the first term to get the volume average and applying the divergence theorem
to the second, this yields:
It now remains to approximate the flux integral which can be achieved using suitable
numerical integration technique which depends on problem geometry and mesh construction.
Integrated form of FVM is very useful for unstructured gridding in reservoir simulation. It
should be remembered that grids (divider of each zone into finite number of cell or control
volume) can be classified as Structured or Unstructured: A Structured Grid uses a topology in
which the cells are arranged in an array structure. Location of neighboring cells is implicit in
the array indices (i,j,k). This allows efficient storage and book-keeping of cell information.
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Control Volume
Figure7: Control volume in Triangular finite element mesh for FVFE Formulation
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Where is a two dimensional domain with boundary . In the finite element method the
overall domain of the problem is divided into a set of sub domains called finite element. Any
geometric shape for which the approximation functions can be derived uniquely qualifies as
an element:
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In FE approximation the problem domain is divided into a set of sub-domains called finite
element. Any geometric shape for which the approximation functions can be derived uniquely
qualifies as an element. Then solution of equation (9) is approximated over a typical finite
element by following expression:
Where
parameter
represents an approximation of
denote the values of the function
element. It is very simple demonstration for FE method and further discussion about it can be
found other manuscripts.
Finite Element has some powerful features, provided attention is paid to the physics of
multiphase flow in porous media. In this method, the unknown variables, such as saturation or
concentration are approximated by using known test functions, which can be linear or higher
order polynomial expansion in terms of unknown variables at the geometric locations (nodes)
when the finite element shapes are defined. As a result, variables such as saturation can vary
within a given cell or element, which results in low numerical dispersion. The finite element
method is also flexible for unstructured gridding.
Drawback of finite element method, or finite difference and finite volume with higher order
approximations, include unphysical oscillations that require post processing after each time
step, by methods such as the slope limiters (Firoozabadi, 2007). Another drawback may relate
to the need for close attention to the physics of multiphase flow. For example, if one uses the
continuous Galerkin method, a problem may arise because it does not allow for discontinuous
saturation at the nodes. As a result, the continuous Galerkin method does not fit the two phase
flow in heterogeneous media with capillary heterogeneity. The discontinuous Galerkin
method, on the other hand, removes the deficiency and provides an accurate solution because
it also allows for sharp changes in saturation.
In order to find major difference between multiscale and standard finite element for PDE
discretization in numerical reservoir simulation remember fine and coarse grid models in
reservoir characterization. The fine grid model is employed to geologically characterize a
reservoir that should be up-scaled into coarse model for prediction of reservoir performance
due to computational costs for the finer grids. There are some Upscaling techniques that have
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