Semi-Analytical Solutions for a Partially Penetrated Well with Wellbore Storage and Skin Effects in a Double-Porosity System with a Gas Cap

We have studied the effect of a constant top pressure on the pressure transient analysis of a partially penetrated well in an infinite-acting fractured reservoir with wellbore storage and skin factor effects. Semi-analytical solutions of a two-dimensional diffusivity equation have been obtained by using successive applications of the Laplace and modified finite Fourier sine transforms. Both pseudo-steady-state and transient exchanges between the matrix and the fractures have been considered. Solutions are presented that can be used to generate type curves for pressure transient analysis or can be used as a forward model in parameter estimation. The presented analysis has applications in well testing of fractured aquifers and naturally fractured oil reservoirs with a gas cap.     

Transient spherical flow of non-newtonian power-law fluids in porous media

The transient spherical flow behavior of a slightly compressible non-Newtonian, power-law fluids in porous media is studied. A nonlinear partial differential equation of parabolic type is derived. The diffusivity equation for spherical flow is a special case of the new equation. We obtain analytical, asymptotic and approximate solutions by using the methods of Laplace transform and weighted mass conservation. The structures of asymptotic and approximate solutions are similar, which enriches the theory of one-dimensional flow of non-Newtonian fluids through porous media.     

Transient Heat and Moisture Flow Around Heat Source Buried in an Unsaturated Half Space

This article presents solutions for the transient heat and moisture transport due to both disk heat source and cylindrical heat source buried in an unsaturated half space. The solutions are presented in Hankel–Laplace transform domain and in dimensionless style. Coupled effect of thermally driven moisture transport is especially investigated because of its importance to alter the flow field in low-permeability medium. Parametric study has been performed to assess the effects of five independent dimensionless parameters on flow field. The stability and accuracy of the present solutions are demonstrated from the comparison between the results obtained from these solutions and those by using a well-established finite element code CODE_BRIGHT. Despite the simplified assumptions required in order to obtain analytical solutions in Hankel–Laplace transform domain, the results incorporate the main mechanisms involved in the coupled thermo-hydraulic (T-H) problem, and they may be eventually used for validation purposes.     

Almost analytic solutions and their tests of the horizontal diffusion equation for the movement of water in unsaturated soil

Itisalwaysdifficulttofindthesolutionsoftheequationforthemovementofwaterinunsaturatedsoi1.Theprimar}'reasonisthatthehydraulicconductivityK(T)orthediffusivityofsoiIwaterD(o)isfunctionofwaterpotential(W)orwatercontent'(o)'Atpresent,thegeneralwaystofindthesol…     

Nonstationary filtration in partially saturated porous media

From the mathematical formulation of a one-dimensional flow through a partially saturated porous medium, we arrive at a nonlinear free boundary problem, the boundary being between the saturated and the unsaturated regions in the medium. In particular we obtain an equation which is parabolic in the unsaturated part of the domain and elliptic in the saturated part.Existence, uniqueness, a maximum principle and regularity properties are proved for weak solutions of a Cauchy-Dirichlet problem in the cylinder {(x,t): 0x1, t0} and the nature, in particular the regularity, of the free boundary is discussed.Finally, it is shown that solutions of a large class of Cauchy-Dirichlet problems converge towards a stationary solution as t and estimates are given for the rate of convergence.     

Small internal waves in two-fluid systems

This paper treats travelling waves in a heterogeneous, inviscid, non-diffusive fluid bounded between two horizontal boundaries. The fluid has two incompressible components of different, but constant density and is acted on by gravity. The flow is steady when viewed in a moving reference frame and gives rise to a quasilinear elliptic problem with an eigenvalue parameter related to the wave speed. The small amplitude solutions are analyzed using a dynamical systems approach. A center manifold reduction in combination with a conserved quantity for the flow is used to parametrise all small solutions of the full elliptic system in terms of solutions of an autonomous first order ordinary differential equation for a principal component of the wave amplitude. The result is a characterization of all small waves, irrotational in each fluid, near the critical speed for the system. They are: solitary waves; surges connecting distinct conjugate flows at extreme ends of the channel; conjugate flows; and periodic waves.     

Gas Flow in Porous Media With Klinkenberg Effects

Gas flow in porous media differs from liquid flow because of the large gas compressibility and pressure-dependent effective permeability. The latter effect, named after Klinkenberg, may have significant impact on gas flow behavior, especially in low permeability media, but it has been ignored in most of the previous studies because of the mathematical difficulty in handling the additional nonlinear term in the gas flow governing equation. This paper presents a set of new analytical solutions developed for analyzing steady-state and transient gas flow through porous media including Klinkenberg effects. The analytical solutions are obtained using a new form of gas flow governing equation that incorporates the Klinkenberg effect. Additional analytical solutions for one-, two- and three-dimensional gas flow in porous media could be readily derived by the following solution procedures in this paper. Furthermore, the validity of the conventional assumption used for linearizing the gas flow equation has been examined. A generally applicable procedure has been developed for accurate evaluation of the analytical solutions which use a linearized diffusivity for transient gas flow. As application examples, the new analytical solutions have been used to verify numerical solutions, and to design new laboratory and field testing techniques to determine the Klinkenberg parameters. The proposed laboratory analysis method is also used to analyze data from steady-state flow tests of three core plugs from The Geysers geothermal field. We show that this new approach and the traditional method of Klinkenberg yield similar results of Klinkenberg constants for the laboratory tests; however, the new method allows one to analyze data from both transient and steady-state tests in various flow geometries.     

Steady Infiltration in Sloping Porous Domains: the Onset of Saturation

In a recent paper, analytical series methods have been developed to solve the steady quasilinear unsaturated flow equations for arbitrary two-dimensional geometry and mass flux boundary conditions. We use these analytic series methods to examine the relationships among the parameters governing infiltration and the onset of saturation. As the vehicle for this analysis we use the canonical hillslope geometry, viz. an inclined permeable region whose cross-section is a long, thin parallelogram. We find that the critical infiltration rate (at the onset of saturation) varies monotonically with aspect ratio, wetted surface fraction and dimensionless sorptive number. However, the critical infiltration rate varies nonmonotonically with the inclination of the permeable region and attains a maximum value. For clay soils it is found that the inclination has little effect on the maximum critical infiltration rate. However, large aspect ratios or wetted fraction cause a significant reduction in the maximum, to the point where infiltration rates as low as 3 mm/year cause saturation. Sandy soils tend to be saturated but if the inclination is near horizontal a small but signficant unsaturated flow is possible.     

Numerical Homogenization of the Absolute Permeability Using the Conformal-Nodal and Mixed-Hybrid Finite Element Method

The modeling of hydrocarbon reservoirs and of aquifer-aquitard systems can be separated into two activities: geological modeling and fluid flow modeling. The geological model focuses on the geometry and the dimensions of the subsurface layers and faults, and on its rock types. The fluid flow model focuses on quantities like pressure, flux and dissipation, which are related to each other by rock parameters like permeability, storage coefficient, porosity and capillary pressure. The absolute permeability, which is the relevant parameter for steady single-phase flow of a fluid with constant viscosity and density, is studied here. When trying to match the geological model with the fluid flow model, it generally turns out that the spatial scale of the fluid flow model is built from units that are at least a hundred times larger in volume than the units of the geological model. To counter this mismatch in scales, the fine-scale permeabilities of the geological data model have to be upscaled' to coarse-scale permeabilities that relate the spatially averaged pressure, flux and dissipation to each other. The upscaled permeabilities may be considered as complicated averages, which are derived from the spatially averaged flow quantities in such a way that the continuity equation, Darcy's law and the dissipation equation remain valid on the coarse scale. In this paper the theory of upscaling will be presented from a physical point of view aiming at understanding, rather than mathematical rigorousness. Under the simplifying assumption of spatial periodicity of the fine-scale permeability distributions, homogenization theory can be applied. However, even then the spatial distribution of the permeability is generally so intricate that exact solutions of the homogenized permeability cannot be found. Therefore, numerical approximation methods have to be applied. To be able to estimate the approximation error, two numerical methods have been developed: one based on the conventional nodal finite element method (CN-FEM) and the other based on the mixed-hybrid finite element method (MH-FEM). CN-FEM gives an upper bound for the sum of the diagonal components of the homogenized mobility matrix, while MH-FEM gives a lower bound. Three numerical examples are presented.     

Analytical Solutions for Solute Transport in a Spherically Symmetric Divergent Flow Field

Exact analytical solutions for an equation describing advection, dispersion, first-order decay, and rate-limited sorption of a solute in a steady, hemispherical or spherically symmetric, divergent flow field are presented for constant concentration and constant flux boundary conditions in a porous medium. The partial differential equation describing transport is a confluent hypergeometric equation that may be solved with variable substitution and Laplace transform, and the solutions are expressed by parabolic cylindrical functions. The novel solutions derived here may be applied to predict concentration distributions in space and time for porous media transport in a spherically symmetric flow field or for the special case where injection is just below a confining layer (hemispherical flow). The analytical solutions can be used to simulate wastewater injection from short-screened wells into thick formations or to analyze tracer tests that use short-screened wells to create approximately spherical flow fields in thick formations.     

Application of a wave transform to pressure transient testing in porous media

Solutions to the diffusion equation for nonuniform media are difficult to obtain in a form that can be easily evaluated. Often the solutions are written as the inverse Laplace transform of an inverse Fourier transform. In this paper, I show that the wave transform of Bragg and Dettman (1968) coupled with the Cagniard-de Hoop method for solving the wave propagation problem results in simplified solutions to the problem of pressure transient testing in linear composite reservoirs. The potential usefulness of an inverse wave transform, which would transform measured pressure data (smooth) into a wave signal propagating at the velocity of the square root of the diffusivity, is demonstrated by a synthetic example. In the example, diffusivity of the source region is estimated from the time of the direct wave arrival, while diffusivity of a second, higher diffusivity region is estimated from the velocity of the head wave. In the wave domain the time-like variable has units of (time)^1/2 which makes the units of velocity equal to L T-^(1/2). I also demonstrate, using synthetic data, that it is difficult, but perhaps possible, to invert the wave transform numerically.     

Boundary Integral Procedures for Unsaturated Flow Problems

Abstract. A novel numerical scheme based on the singular integral theory of the boundary element method. (BEM) is presented for the solution of transient unsaturated flow in porous media. The effort in the present paper is directed in facilitating the application of the boundary integral theory to the solution of the highly non-linear equations that govern unsaturated flow. The resulting algorithm known as the Green element method (GEM) presents a robust attractive method in the state-of -the-art application of the boundary element methodology. Three GEM models based on their different methods of handling the non-linear diffusivity, illustrate the suitability and robustness of this approach for solving highly non-linear 1-D and 2-D flows which would have proved cumbersome or too difficult to implement with the classical BEM approach.     

Two-dimensional interaction of a wetting front with an impervious layer: Analytical and numerical solutions

Wetting-front movement can be impaired whenever the flow region includes boundaries such as the soil surface, seepage faces, planes of symmetry, or actual layers that are effectively impermeable, such as heavy clays or coarse materials below the water-entry pressure. An approximate analytical solution for interaction of flow from a line source with a parallel plane, impervious layer is derived. The solution ignores gravity and assumes a particular diffusivity that is related to the constant flow rate. It is exact until interaction begins, and provides an accurate approximation for short times thereafter. It can therefore be used to test the accuracy of numerical solutions of the flow equation, which can then be used with confidence for later times when the analytical approximation breaks down, for instance because gravity is ignored. A finite difference solution was tested in this way for both gradual and steep wetting fronts. Agreement between the two solutions was excellent for the gradual front, with the analytical approximation only slightly in error at later times. Numerical errors at the steep front were much greater; an accurate solution needed a finer spatial grid and a restart from the exact analytical values at the beginning of the interaction. The analytical approximation, though not as accurate as for the gradual front, was still good.     

Groundwater Fluctuations in Sloping Aquifers Induced by Time-Varying Replenishment and Seepage from a Uniformly Rising Stream

This paper analyses the classical problem of transient surface?Cgroundwater interaction in a stream?Caquifer system under rather realistic conditions. The downward sloping unconfined aquifer is in contact with a constant water level at one end, and a fully penetrating stream at the other end whose water level is rising at a uniform speed. Furthermore, the aquifer is replenished by a vertical time-varying recharge. Closed form analytical expressions for hydraulic head and flow rate in the aquifer are obtained by solving the linearized Boussinesq equation using Laplace transform method. Effects of aquifer parameters on transient water table and flow rate are illustrated with a numerical example. To assess the efficiency of the linearization method, analytical solutions are compared with numerical solutions of the corresponding non-linear equation.     

Pressure Distribution in a Semi-infinite Horizontal Aquifer with Steep Gradients Due to Steady Recharge and/or Drainage: The Exact Explicit Solution

Groundwater flow with steep gradients in a vertical plane of infinite horizontal extension due to arbitrary non-symmetric strip sources and/or sinks can be described by the 2D Laplace equation. Notwithstanding the strongly nonlinear character of the free surface boundary condition, the exact analytical solution to this problem is developed in a closed form by employing neither the Dupuit assumption nor any other form of linearization. The first section of the development, still including the unsteady case, leads via conformal mapping and transformation procedures to a singular integro-differential-equation for the transient groundwater table. From this point onwards we restrict ourselves to the steady case for which the exact solution of the 2D Laplace equation for the pressure head and the location of the groundwater table was achieved. The solution is expressed exclusively in algebraic terms without the need for iterative procedures. It can not only be applied to real world phenomena, including a simple solution of the inverse problem, but also provide a new transparency regarding the solution characteristics and may serve as a standard for investigating numerical solutions and the domain of validity of simplified approaches. The computer program can be downloaded from www.tu-dresden.de/fghhihm/hydrologie.html     

Transient electro-osmotic and pressure driven flows of two-layer fluids through a slit microchannel

By method of the Laplace transform, this article presents semi-analytical solutions for transient electroosmotic and pressure-driven flows (EOF/PDF) of two-layer fluids between microparallel plates. The linearized Poisson-Boltzmann equation and the Cauchy momentum equation have been solved in this article. At the interface, the Maxwell stress is included as the boundary condition. By numerical computations of the inverse Laplace transform, the effects of dielectric constant ratio ε , density ratio ρ , pressure ratio p, viscosity ratio μ of layer II to layer I, interface zeta potential difference △ψ, interface charge density jump Q, the ratios of maximum electro-osmotic velocity to pressure velocity α , and the normalized pressure gradient B on transient velocity amplitude are presented.We find the velocity amplitude becomes large with the interface zeta potential difference and becomes small with the increase of the viscosity. The velocity will be large with the increases of dielectric constant ratio; the density ratio almost does not influence the EOF velocity. Larger interface charge density jump leads to a strong jump of velocity at the interface. Additionally, the effects of the thickness of fluid layers (h1 and h2 ) and pressure gradient on the velocity are also investigated.     

Well Test Solutions for Vertically Fractured Injection Wells

The transient behavior of a vertically fractured pressure response due to the presence of an infinite-conductivity vertical fracture is determined by solving the diffusivity equation in elliptical coordinates. The solution is then extended to a composite elliptical system to provide for the different fluid banks present during water injection. The validity of the analytical solutions presented is demonstrated by comparing limiting forms with those available elsewhere in the literature. Computational issues which became evident during the verification stage of our work are also discussed. The solutions have been developed in the Laplace domain to facilitate the addition of fissures and variable rate production (i.e. wellbore storage).A pressure transient test for tracking the advancement of a water front during the early stages of waterflooding is described. We utilize the composite elliptical model developed herein to provide for two distinct regions in which the flow behavior resulting from an induced fracture is elliptical rather than radial. A relationship between the increasing elliptical distance to the waterfront and the resulting change in the apparent (total) skin factor is obtained. Through the analysis of successive falloff tests, this relationship may be used to monitor the advancement of the front provided the cumulative volume of injected water is known. The fluid saturations and the mobilities of the swept and unswept regions are assumed unknown and are obtained from the test analysis.Finally, we present methods for computing the Mathieu functions necessary in solving the diffusivity equation in elliptical coordinates. Mathieu functions are utilized in many applications involving elliptical geometry and we feel the efficient evaluation of these functions is an important contribution of this work.     

三维势流场的比例边界有限元求解方法

比例边界有限元法(SBFEM)是线性偏微分方程的一种新的数值求解方法。该方法只对计算域边界利用Galerkin方法进行数值离散,相对于有限元方法(FEM)减少了一个空间坐标的维数,而在减少的空间坐标方向利用解析方法进行求解;相对于边界元法(BEM),比例边界有限元方法不需要基本解,避免了奇异积分的计算,所以它结合了有限元和边界元方法的优点。本文建立了利用比例边界有限元法求解三维Laplace方程的数值模型并用于计算三维物体周围的水流场,将计算结果与解析解和边界元方法进行了对比,结果表明此方法可以很好地模拟水流场,且具有较高的计算精度。     

Laplace transform-boundary element coupling method for viscous fluid-structure impact analysis

Based on linearized 2-D Navier-Stokes equation, a Laplace transform-boundary element coupling method for viscous fluid-structure impact analysis is proposed. Under assumption of incompressibility for the fluid, the corresponding equivalent boundary integral equation in terms of the potential function and stream function is first established by Lamb's transform in the Laplace transform domain. It enables us to solve impact water problems in frequency domain by the boundary element method, in which the effect of viscous flow on the dynamic response can be taken into account. Then a complete solution of the problem under consideration in time domain is obtained by means of Durbin's formulas for the numerical inversion of the Laplace transform. Finally, a practical example is given to confirm the validity of the present method. Project supported by the National Defence Foundation of Science & Technology of China (No. J14. 8. 1. JW0515).