A space-time adaptive method for reservoir flows: formulation and one-dimensional application

This paper presents a space-time adaptive framework for solving porous media flow problems, with specific application to reservoir simulation. A fully unstructured mesh discretization of space and time is used instead of a conventional time-marching approach. A space-time discontinuous Galerkin finite element method is employed to achieve a high-order discretization on the anisotropic, unstructured meshes. Anisotropic mesh adaptation is performed to reduce the error of a specified output of interest, by using a posteriori error estimates from the dual-weighted residual method to drive a metric-based mesh optimization algorithm. The space-time adaptive method is tested on a one-dimensional two-phase flow problem, and is found to be more efficient in terms of computational cost (degrees-of-freedom and total runtime) required to achieve a specified output error level, when compared to a conventional first-order time-marching finite volume method and the space-time discontinuous Galerkin method on structured meshes.     

A semi-implicit method for incompressible three-phase flow in porous media

In this paper, we present a semi-implicit method for the incompressible three-phase flow equations in two dimensions. In particular, a high-order discontinuous Galerkin spatial discretization is coupled with a backward Euler discretization in time. We consider a pressure-saturation formulation, decouple the pressure and saturation equations, and solve them sequentially while still keeping each equation implicit in its respective unknown. We present several numerical examples on both homogeneous and heterogeneous media, with varying permeability and porosity. Our results demonstrate the robustness of the scheme. In particular, no slope limiters are required and a relatively large time step may be taken.     

Discontinuous Galerkin method for two-component liquid–gas porous media flows

We consider two-component (typically, water and hydrogen) compressible liquid–gas porous media flows including mass exchange between phases possibly leading to gas-phase (dis)appearance, as motivated by hydrogen production in underground repositories of radioactive waste. Following recent work by Bourgeat, Jurak, and Smaï, we formulate the governing equations in terms of liquid pressure and dissolved hydrogen density as main unknowns, leading mathematically to a nonlinear elliptic–parabolic system of partial differential equations, in which the equations degenerate when the gas phase disappears. We develop a discontinuous Galerkin method for space discretization, combined with a backward Euler scheme for time discretization and an incomplete Newton method for linearization. Numerical examples deal with gas-phase (dis)appearance, ill-prepared initial conditions, and heterogeneous problem with different rock types.     

A time‐discontinuous Galerkin method for the dynamical analysis of porous media

We present a time‐discontinuous Galerkin method (DGT) for the dynamic analysis of fully saturated porous media. The numerical method consists of a finite element discretization in space and time. The discrete basis functions are continuous in space and discontinuous in time. The continuity across the time interval is weakly enforced by a flux function. Two applications and several numerical investigations confirm the quality of the proposed space–time finite element scheme. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Upscaling of the permeability by multiscale wavelet transformations and simulation of multiphase flows in heterogeneous porous media

We describe a new approach for simulation of multiphase flows through heterogeneous porous media, such as oil reservoirs. The method, which is based on the wavelet transformation of the spatial distribution of the single-phase permeabilities, incorporates in the upscaled computational grid all the relevant data on the permeability, porosity, and other important properties of a porous medium at all the length scales. The upscaling method generates a nonuniform computational grid which preserves the resolved structure of the geological model in the near-well zones as well as in the high-permeability sectors and upscales the rest of the geological model. As such, the method is a multiscale one that preserves all the important information across all the relevant length scales. Using a robust front-detection method which eliminates the numerical dispersion by a high-order total variation diminishing method (suitable for the type of nonuniform upscaled grid that we generate), we obtain highly accurate results with a greatly reduced computational cost. The speed-up in the computations is up to over three orders of magnitude, depending on the degree of heterogeneity of the model. To demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of our methods, five distinct models (including one with fractures) of heterogeneous porous media are considered, and two-phase flows in the models are studied, with and without the capillary pressure.     

A space-time discontinuous Galerkin method applied to single-phase flow in porous media

A space-time discontinuous Galerkin finite element method is proposed and applied to a convection-dominant single-phase flow problem in porous media. The numerical scheme is based on a coupled space-time finite element discretization allowing for discontinuous approximations in space and in time. The continuities on the element interfaces are weakly enforced by the flux treatments, so that no extra penalty factor has to be determined. The resulting space-time formulation possesses the advantage of capturing the steep concentration front with sharp gradients efficiently. The stability and reliability of the proposed approach is demonstrated by numerical experiments. The author is grateful to the DFG (German Science Foundation—Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) for the financial support under the grant number Di 430/4-2.     

A discretization and multigrid solver for a Darcy–Stokes system of three dimensional vuggy porous media

We develop a finite element discretization and multigrid solver for a Darcy–Stokes system of three-dimensional vuggy porous media, i.e., porous media with cavities. The finite element method uses low-order mixed finite elements in the Darcy and Stokes domains and special transition elements near the Darcy–Stokes interface to allow for tangential discontinuities implied by the Beavers–Joseph boundary condition. We design a multigrid method to solve the resulting saddle point linear system. The intertwining of the Darcy and Stokes subdomains makes the resulting matrix highly ill-conditioned. The velocity field is very irregular, and its discontinuous tangential component at the Darcy–Stokes interface makes it difficult to define intergrid transfer operators. Our definition is based on mass conservation and the analysis of the orders of magnitude of the solution. The coarser grid equations are defined using the Galerkin method. A new smoother of Uzawa type is developed based on taking an optimal step in a good search direction. Our algorithm has a measured convergence factor independent of the size of the system, at least when there are no disconnected vugs. We study the macroscopic effective permeability of a vuggy medium, showing that the influence of vug orientation; shape; and, most importantly, interconnectivity determine the macroscopic flow properties of the medium. This work was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under grants DMS-0074310 and DMS-0417431.     

Control‐volume mixed finite element methods

A key ingredient in simulation of flow in porous media is accurate determination of the velocities that drive the flow. Large‐scale irregularities of the geology (faults, fractures, and layers) suggest the use of irregular grids in simulation. This paper presents a control‐volume mixed finite element method that provides a simple, systematic, easily implemented procedure for obtaining accurate velocity approximations on irregular (i.e., distorted logically rectangular) block‐centered quadrilateral grids. The control‐volume formulation of Darcy’s law can be viewed as a discretization into element‐sized “tanks” with imposed pressures at the ends, giving a local discrete Darcy law analogous to the block‐by‐block conservation in the usual mixed discretization of the mass‐conservation equation. Numerical results in two dimensions show second‐order convergence in the velocity, even with discontinuous anisotropic permeability on an irregular grid. The method extends readily to three dimensions.     

A novel approach to eliminate error induced by cell to node projections

In engineering practices, different numerical methods for fluid flow simulation and solid deformation/stress simulation are adopted to model fluid–structure interaction problems in porous media. Cell‐centered finite volume method is widely used in fluid flow simulation, while the solid deformation/stress simulation is usually accomplished by using the Galerkin vertex‐centered finite element method, which leads to the incompatibility between cell variables with nodal variables. Therefore, the data transfer between cell variables and nodal variables is inevitable. Consequently, this kind of transfer will lead to extra artificial error. Hence, the major concern is how to minimize the error due to cell to node projections. In this paper, a problem of pore pressure diffusion within a one‐dimensional heterogeneous porous medium is investigated. We present a new projection scheme and corresponding error formula, where the error control factor is introduced. The new projection scheme is based on piecewise linear interpolations. Results demonstrate that if the error control factor is chosen properly, the error due to the projection from cell to node can be controlled effectively, and the most desired zero error can be achieved. Finally, we analyze some practical cases in consideration of permeability contrast and mesh uniformity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A fully-coupled discontinuous Galerkin method for two-phase flow in porous media with discontinuous capillary pressure

In this paper, we formulate and test numerically a fully-coupled discontinuous Galerkin (DG) method for incompressible two-phase flow with discontinuous capillary pressure. The spatial discretization uses the symmetric interior penalty DG formulation with weighted averages and is based on a wetting-phase potential/capillary potential formulation of the two-phase flow system. After discretizing in time with diagonally implicit Runge-Kutta schemes, the resulting systems of nonlinear algebraic equations are solved with Newton’s method and the arising systems of linear equations are solved efficiently and in parallel with an algebraic multigrid method. The new scheme is investigated for various test problems from the literature and is also compared to a cell-centered finite volume scheme in terms of accuracy and time to solution. We find that the method is accurate, robust, and efficient. In particular, no postprocessing of the DG velocity field is necessary in contrast to results reported by several authors for decoupled schemes. Moreover, the solver scales well in parallel and three-dimensional problems with up to nearly 100 million degrees of freedom per time step have been computed on 1,000 processors.     

A finite volume / discontinuous Galerkin method for the advective Cahn–Hilliard equation with degenerate mobility on porous domains stemming from micro-CT imaging

A numerical method is formulated for the solution of the advective Cahn–Hilliard (CH) equation with constant and degenerate mobility in three-dimensional porous media with non-vanishing velocity on the exterior boundary. The CH equation describes phase separation of an immiscible binary mixture at constant temperature in the presence of a conservation constraint and dissipation of free energy. Porous media / pore-scale problems specifically entail images of rocks in which the solid matrix and pore spaces are fully resolved. The interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin method is used for the spatial discretization of the CH equation in mixed form, while a semi-implicit convex–concave splitting is utilized for temporal discretization. The spatial approximation order is arbitrary, while it reduces to a finite volume scheme for the choice of element-wise constants. The resulting nonlinear systems of equations are reduced using the Schur complement and solved via inexact Newton’s method. The numerical scheme is first validated using numerical convergence tests and then applied to a number of fundamental problems for validation and numerical experimentation purposes including the case of degenerate mobility. First-order physical applicability and robustness of the numerical method are shown in a breakthrough scenario on a voxel set obtained from a micro-CT scan of a real sandstone rock sample.     

Couplex Benchmark Computations Obtained with the Software Toolbox UG

This paper describes the numerical results for the COUPLEX benchmark obtained with the simulation software UG using vertex centered finite volume and higher order discontinuous Galerkin schemes. Multigrid solvers on unstructured grids, local mesh refinement and parallel computation are employed to yield very accurate solutions. Since the full range of results required in the benchmarks is too large to be displayed in this paper we focus on the comparison of discretization schemes, assessment of numerical errors and the presentation of parallel computations.     

多孔介质中含均相/非均相反应传质过程数值模拟

结合化学反应方程式,并应用多孔多相介质溶混污染物输运过程的数值模型,对多孔多相介质中含均相/非均相化学反应传质过程进行了数值模拟。化学反应主要包含均相快速/慢速和非均相快速/慢速等5种化学反应过程,溶质输运行为的控制机制主要考虑对流、扩散及降解、吸附等。基于原有的隐式特征线Galerkin离散化的有限元方法,求解模型控制方程的边值初值问题,求解过程中把均相化学反应物质中按照反应物和生成物分开,非均相反应物质按照固相和液相分开,对均相反应物及非均相液相物质浓度耦合求解,而均相生成物和非均相固相物质独立求解。使方程组按照其不同类型进行分类,同时可减少未知数的个数。对于含有非线性内状态变量的右端项进行迭代求解。数值例题结果验证了所提出的数值方法的有效性、计算精度和稳定性。     

A posteriori error estimates, stopping criteria, and adaptivity for two-phase flows

This paper develops a general abstract framework for a posteriori estimates for immiscible incompressible two-phase flows in porous media. We measure the error by the dual norm of the residual and, for mathematical correctness, employ the concept of global and complementary pressures in the analysis. Our estimators allow to estimate separately the different error components, namely, the spatial discretization error, the temporal discretization error, the linearization error, the iterative coupling error, and the algebraic solver error. We propose an adaptive algorithm wherein the different iterative procedures (iterative linearization, iterative coupling, iterative solution of linear systems) are stopped when the corresponding errors do not affect significantly the overall error and wherein the spatial and temporal errors are equilibrated. Consequently, important computational savings can be achieved while guaranteeing a user-given precision. The developed framework covers fully implicit, implicit pressure–explicit saturation, or iterative coupling formulations; conforming spatial discretization schemes such as the vertex-centered finite volume method or the finite element method and nonconforming spatial discretization schemes such as the cell-centered finite volume method, the mixed finite element method, or the discontinuous Galerkin method; linearizations such as the Newton or the fixed-point one; and general linear solvers. Numerical experiments for a model problem are presented to illustrate the theoretical results. Only by stopping timely the linear and nonlinear solvers, speedups by a factor between 10 and 20 in terms of the number of total linear solver iterations are achieved.     

Development of a discontinuous approach for modeling fluid flow in heterogeneous media using the numerical manifold method

In the numerical modeling of fluid flow in heterogeneous geological media, large material contrasts associated with complexly intersected material interfaces are challenging, not only related to mesh discretization but also for the accurate realization of the corresponding boundary constraints. To address these challenges, we developed a discontinuous approach for modeling fluid flow in heterogeneous media using the numerical manifold method (NMM) and the Lagrange multiplier method (LMM) for modeling boundary constraints. The advantages of NMM include meshing efficiency with fixed mathematical grids (covers), the convenience of increasing the approximation precision, and the high integration precision provided by simplex integration. In this discontinuous approach, the elements intersected by material interfaces are divided into different elements and linked together using the LMM. We derive and compare different forms of LMMs and arrive at a new LMM that is efficient in terms of not requiring additional Lagrange multiplier topology, yet stringently derived by physical principles, and accurate in numerical performance. To demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the NMM with the developed LMM for boundary constraints, we simulate a number of verification and demonstration examples, involving a Dirichlet boundary condition and dense and intersected material interfaces. Last, we applied the developed model for modeling fluid flow in heterogeneous media with several material zones containing a fault and an opening. We show that the developed discontinuous approach is very suitable for modeling fluid flow in strongly heterogeneous media with good accuracy for large material contrasts, complex Dirichlet boundary conditions, or complexly intersected material interfaces. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A discontinuous Galerkin method for two-phase flow in a porous medium enforcing H(div) velocityand continuous capillary pressure

We consider the slightly compressible two-phase flow problem in a porous medium with capillary pressure. The problem is solved using the implicit pressure, explicit saturation (IMPES) method, and the convergence is accelerated with iterative coupling of the equations. We use discontinuous Galerkin to discretize both the pressure and saturation equations. We apply two improvements, which are projecting the flux to the mass conservative H(div)-space and penalizing the jump in capillary pressure in the saturation equation. We also discuss the need and use of slope limiters and the choice of primary variables in discretization. The methods are verified with two- and three-dimensional numerical examples. The results show that the modifications stabilize the method and improve the solution.     

非均匀多孔介质等效渗透率的普适表达式

多孔介质渗流是普遍的物理过程,涉及地下工程、地热开采、环境工程等各行各业,尤其是工程建设,常面临防渗问题。由于地质条件的复杂性,工程区域地层受到成岩、压实、风化、生物作用等各种影响,故渗流性质复杂,常需要对建设区域的渗流状况进行数值模拟,从而为工程的设计施工提供决策依据。数值仿真结果依赖于对地层介质关键参数的选取,但目前工程多将其视为均匀介质处理,对于介质的非均匀特性考虑较少。文章旨在研究非均质多孔介质渗透率空间分布与等效渗透率的关系。基于连续介质假定、达西定律以及非均匀多孔介质渗透率空间分布函数,建立一维到三维的达西渗流问题模型,通过求解偏微分方程和理论推导,得到基于渗透率空间分布函数的等效渗透率理论表达式,并与有限元计算的数值解进行对比分析,结果表明理论值和数值解误差很小,证明等效渗透率的表达式的合理性。利用该成果可通过多点局部渗透率的测定构建渗透率空间分布函数,从而对整体渗流区域的渗透性质进行快速计算和评估,从而简化异常复杂的工程地质模型以减少计算量需求,对于工程仿真的快速计算和结果评估有重要意义。     

A meshless method for axisymmetric problems in continuously nonhomogeneous saturated porous media

A meshless method based on the local Petrov–Galerkin approach is proposed to analyze 3-d axisymmetric problems in porous functionally graded materials. Constitutive equations for porous materials possess a coupling between mechanical displacements for solid and fluid phases. The work is based on the u–u formulation and the incognita fields of the coupled analysis in focus are the solid skeleton displacements and the fluid displacements. Independent spatial discretization is considered for each phase of the model, rendering a more flexible and efficient methodology. Both displacements are approximated by the moving least-squares (MLS) scheme. The paper presents in the first time a general meshless method for the numerical analysis of axisymmetric problems in continuously nonhomogeneous saturated porous media. Numerical results are given for boreholes in continuously nonhomogeneous porous medium with prescribed misfit and exponential variation of material parameters in the excavation zone.     

Modelling Two-Phase Incompressible Flow in Porous Media Using Mixed Hybrid and Discontinuous Finite Elements

In this paper, we present a numerical model for simulating two-phase (oil–water and air–water) incompressible and immiscible flow in porous media. The mathematical model which is based on a fractional flow formulation is formed of two nonlinear partial differential equations: a mean pressure equation and a water saturation equation. These two equations can be solved in a sequential manner. Two numerical methods are used to discretize the equations of the two-phase flow model: mixed hybrid finite elements are used to treat the pressure equation, h-based Richards' equation and the diffusion term in the saturation equation, the advection term in the saturation equation is treated with the discontinuous finite elements. We propose a better way to calculate the nonlinear coefficients contained in our equations on each element of the discretized domain. In heterogeneous porous media, the saturation becomes discontinuous at the interface between two porous media. We show in this paper how to use the capillary pressure–saturation relationship in order to handle the saturation jump in the mixed hybrid finite element method. The two-phase flow simulator is verified against analytical solutions for some flow problems treated by other authors.