1887

Abstract

We consider numerical modeling of compositional two-phase flow in porous media, and we propose a nonlinear formulation that employs a variable-set based on compositional space parameterization. In the formulation, the phase-fraction and saturation change 'continuously' in the immiscible region of the compositional space. Inside the two-phase region, these variables are identical to the saturation and phase-fraction of the standard approach. In the single-phase regions, however, these variables can become negative, or larger that unity. We demonstrate that when this variable set is used, the EOS computations are resolved completely within the general Newton loop. That is, no separate phase-stability or flash computations are necessary. The number of general Newton iterations grows only slightly, and overall savings lead to more efficient simulations. We discuss using this variable set, which can be thought of as an extension of the natural variable, in two ways. The first scheme honors the nonlinear dependence of the overall density on phase-fractions and saturation, and the second employs a linearized relation for the overall density. Both schemes are compared with the standard natural-variables formulation using several challenging compositional problems. We also describe how the proposed approach can be used for modeling multi-contact miscible displacement processes.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20144933
2010-09-06
2024-03-28
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/papers/10.3997/2214-4609.20144933
Loading
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error