Application of control volume based finite element method for solving the black-oil fluid equations

作者：Amiri Ghoreishian S A; Sadrnejad S A; Ghasemzadeh H; Montazeri G H

来源：Petroleum Science, 2013, 10(3): 361-372.

DOI：10.1007/s12182-013-0284-3

• Control volume based finite element
• black-oil model
• grid orientation
• porous media

This is the second paper of a series where we introduce a control volume based finite element method (CVFEM) to simulate multiphase flow in porous media. This is a fully conservative method able to deal with unstructured grids which can be used for representing any complexity of reservoir geometry and its geological objects in an accurate and efficient manner. In order to deal with the inherent heterogeneity of the reservoirs, all operations related to discretization are performed at the element level in a manner similar to classical finite element method (FEM). Moreover, the proposed method can effectively reduce the so-called grid orientation effects. In the first paper of this series, we presented this method and its application for incompressible and immiscible two-phase flow simulation in homogeneous and heterogeneous porous media. In this paper, we evaluate the capability of the method in the solution of highly nonlinear and coupled partial differential equations by simulating hydrocarbon reservoirs using the black-oil model. Furthermore, the effect of grid orientation is investigated by simulating a benchmark waterflooding problem. The numerical results show that the formulation presented here is efficient and accurate for solving the bubble point and three-phase coning problems.

• 出版日期2013-9