Finite Element Methods for
Flow in Porous Media
John Chapman and Max Jensen
john.chapman@durham.ac.uk
m.p.j.jensen@durham.ac.uk
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Durham University
Fluid Flow in
Porous Media
A porous medium contains at least one non solid
phase in a solid matrix where the pores com-
prising the void space are interconnected. The
porosity, of the medium at a point x0 is the
ratio of void space to total volume in a neigh-
bourhood of x0, known as a representative ele-
mentary volume (REV) as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: A porous medium filling with
REV centred on x0
Consider a porous medium filling a domain
R3. Conservation of mass in implies
()
+ (u) = q in (1) certain conditions on B (see [5], p.298). Ap-
t
where the first term represents mass accumu-
lation due to changes of fluid density in the
porous medium, the second mass inflow or out-
flow from the volume and the RHS sources and
sinks within . is the density of the fluid and u
is the macroscopic velocity. Darcys Law, given
by (2), can be derived from the Navier-Stokes
equations and is valid in regions of slow, viscous
flow. This is the case in most oil reservoir prob-
lems.
K As with any numerical method it is essential to
u = (p g) (2) In most cases solving B[p, v] = (f, v) explicitly
Here p is the fluid pressure which is to be deter-
mined, the dynamic viscosity and K(x) a ten-
sor of absolute permeability. Combining equa-
tions (1) and (2) gives
()

K
 solution in V . In general the solution pN VN
+ (p g) = q in (3) and p V are not the same, but by taking suc-
t sis for proving the convergence of finite element
which is a parabolic equation in general, but re-
duces to elliptic form if the density is constant
i.e. the equations model an incompressible fluid.
Weak
Formulation
Consider the partial differential equation
 has a unique solution.
p = f in
(4)
p = 0 on
MAGIC 2009: Complexity, algorithms and methods.
where is a Lipschitz domain of Rn, f L2().
Multiply (4)1 by a smooth test function v
H01() and integrate by parts to find
Z Z
p v dx = f v dx (5)
where the boundary terms have vanished be-
cause of the boundary condition (4)2. The equa-
tion (5) is known as the weak formulation of
the problem (4) for p H01() and for all
v H01(). This process can be generalised
for Lp = f where L is an elliptic differential op-
erator with the associated bilinear form B given
by
n
Z X
B[p, v] := (aij (x))pxi vxj
i,j=1
n 
bi(x)pxi v + c(x)pv dx (6)
X
+ Every type of problem will require a different
i=1
where aij , bi, c are given coefficient func-
tions. By the Lax-Milgram Theorem the equa-
tion B[p, v] = (f, v) (where ( , ) denotes the in-
ner product in L2) has a unique solution under
plying these results to the fluid flow problem
(3) and looking for a weak solution for p in the
case of incompressible flow gives the coefficients
a = (K)/, b = (K)/ and c = 0.
Finite Element
Methods
is impossible as the solution space V is infinite
dimensional (e.g. V above is H01()) . One ap-
proach to this is to solve the problem in a finite
dimensional subspace VN and demonstrate that
the solution in VN is a valid approximation to the
with c a constant. Ceas inequality is the ba-
cessively larger subspaces VN1 VN2 . . . V
the solutions pNi converge to the true solution.
This method is known as the Galerkin method.
We assume that B is a bounded and elliptic bi-
linear form. If VN is taken as piecewise polyno-
mials on a polygonal discretization (or triangu-
lation) of , then the method is a finite element
method. The Lax-Milgram Theorem again guar-
antees the problem
pn Vn, B[pn, vn] = (f, vn), (7)
Consider a problem of the form (7) on a region
given in Figure 2 where triangular elements have
been used to form a mesh. In order to refine a
finite element method on the region there are
three obvious choices: To increase the degree of
the polynomial interpolant (p-method); to refine
the mesh size (h-method); or to do both (hp-
method). The left hand side of Figure 2 shows
the original mesh, and the RHS shows a refine-
ment of the triangulation round a reentrant cor-
ner.
Figure 2: Finite element mesh refinement
at a corner
approach to mesh refinements and polynomial
degree, although some general principles can be
applied based on the smoothness of the solu-
tions. Unfortunately this smoothness may not
be known a priori.
On a practical and theoretical level it is often eas-
ier to solve the equations on a reference element
and then transform the solution (and any asso-
ciated error) to the triangulation of the problem
in question. Choosing basis functions on the ref-
erence elements is usually more straightforward
than on a general element, and the functions only
have to be determined once. It is important to
pick basis elements with small supports across
the finite element space as this can considerably
reduce computational difficulty as it results in
matrices that are sparse.
bound the error incurred by approximating the
true solution p with pN . With finite elements
the fundamental result is Ceas inequality
kp pN kV c inf kp vkV (8)
vVN
methods.
References:
[1] Atkinson, K. and Han, W., Theoretical Numerical Analysis:
A Functional Analysis Framework, Springer-Verlag, New York,
2001.
[2] Bastian, P., Numerical Computation of Multiphase Flows
in Porous Media, Habilitationsschrift, Christian-Albrechts-
Universitat Kiel, 1999.
[3] Bear, J., Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Media, Dover Publica-
tions, New York, 1988.
[4] Braess, D., Finite Elements: Theory, Fast Solvers, and Appli-
cations in Solid Mechanics, Cambridge University Press, Cam-
bridge, 2007.
[5] Evans, L.C., Partial Differential Equations, American Mathe-
matical Society, Rhode Island, 2008.