渗流方程自适应非均匀网格Dagan粗化算法

在粗网格内先统计渗透率在粗网格中的概率分布，利用Dagan渗透率粗化积分方程通过渗透率概率分布计算粗化网格的等效渗透率，并由等效渗透率计算了粗化网格的压强分布，计算压强时还将渗透率自适应网格技术应用于三维渗流方程的网格粗化算法中，在渗透率或孔隙度变化异常区域自动采用精细网格，用直接解法求解渗透率或孔隙度变化异常区域的压强分布。整个求解区采用不均匀网格粗化，在流体流速高的区域采用精细网格。利用本文方法计算了三维渗流方程的压强分布，结果表明这种算法的解在渗透率或孔隙度异常区的压强分布规律非常逼近精细网格的解，在其他区域压强分布规律非常逼近粗化算法的解，计算速度比采用精细网格提高了约100倍。     

Application of Effective Flux Boundary Conditions to Two-Phase Upscaling in Porous Media

A new algorithm is introduced for upscaling relative permeabilities, and tested in simulations of two-dimensional reservoir displacement processes. The algorithm is similar to existing algorithms for computing upscaled relative permeabilities from subgrid simulations, but uses new boundary conditions for the pressure field. The new 'effective flux boundary conditions' were introduced in a previous paper and provide a more accurate estimate of flux through high permeability channels. The algorithm was tested in conjunction with uniform grid coarsening and upscaled absolute permeabilities for a broad range of coarsenings. The permeability fields were highly heteroge-neous and layered, and were obtained from synthetic data and from conditioned realizations of actual oil reservoirs. The algorithm was tested for a wide variety of grid aspect ratios, and for both viscous-and gravity-dominated flow. Typical fine grids were of the order of 100×100 cells; the coarsest scaled-up grids were on the order of 5×5 cells. The quality of scale up was evaluated by comparing oil cut curves for the fine and coarse grid simulations. We consistently obtained excellent agreement, even at the coarsest levels of scale up.     

The effects of control‐volume distributed multi‐point flux approximation (CVD‐MPFA) on upscaling—A study using the CVD‐MPFA schemes

A family of flux‐continuous, locally conservative, finite‐volume schemes has been developed for solving the general geometry‐permeability tensor (petroleum reservoir‐simulation) pressure equation on structured and unstructured grids and are control‐volume distributed (textit Comput. Geo. 1998; 2 :259–290; Comput. Geo. 2002; 6 :433–452). The schemes are applicable to diagonal and full tensor pressure equation with generally discontinuous coefficients and remove the O(1) errors introduced by standard reservoir‐simulation schemes (two‐point flux approximation) when applied to full tensor flow approximation. The family of flux‐continuous schemes is quantified by a quadrature parameterization (Int. J. Numer. Meth. Fluids 2006; 51 :1177–1203). Improved convergence (for two‐ and three‐dimensional formulation) using the quadrature parameterization has been observed for the family of flux‐continuous control‐volume distributed multi‐point flux approximation (CVD‐MPFA) schemes (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Wales, Swansea, U.K., 2007). In this paper family of flux‐continuous (CVD‐MPFA) schemes are used as a part of numerical upscaling procedure for upscaling the fine‐scale grid information (permeability) onto a coarse grid scale. A series of data‐sets (SPE, 2001) are tested where the upscaled permeability tensor is computed on a sequence of grid levels using the same fixed range of quadrature points in each case. The refinement studies presented involve:

• (i) Refinement comparison study: In this study, permeability distribution for cells at each grid level is obtained by upscaling directly from the fine‐scale permeability field as in standard simulation practice.
• (ii) Refinement study with renormalized permeability: In this refinement comparison, the local permeability is upscaled to the next grid level hierarchically, so that permeability values are renormalized to each coarser level. Hence, showing only the effect of increased grid resolution on upscaled permeability, compared with that obtained directly from the fine‐scale solution.
• (iii) Refinement study with invariant permeability distribution: In this study, a classical mathematical convergence test is performed. The same coarse‐scale underlying permeability map is preserved on all grid levels including the fine‐scale reference solution.

The study is carried out for the discretization of the scheme in physical space. The benefit of using specific quadrature points is demonstrated for upscaling in this study and superconvergence is observed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Accurate Representation of Near-well Effects in Coarse-Scale Models of Primary Oil Production

Near-well effects can have a strong impact on many subsurface flow processes. In oil production, because dissolved gas is released from the oil phase when the pressure falls below the bubble point, the detailed pressure field in the immediate vicinity of a production well strongly impacts gas (and thus oil) production. This effect is complicated by the interplay of fine-scale heterogeneity and two-phase flow physics, and can be difficult to capture in coarse-grid simulations. In this article, we develop and apply a new upscaling (coarse-graining) procedure to capture such near-well subgrid effects in coarse-scale flow simulation models. The method entails the use of preprocessing computations over near-well domains [referred to as local well models (LWM)] for the determination of upscaled single-phase and two-phase near-well parameters. These parameters are computed by minimizing the mismatch between fine and coarse-scale flows over the LWM. Minimization is accomplished using a gradient-based optimization procedure, with gradients calculated through solution of adjoint equations. The boundary conditions applied on the LWM can impact the upscaled parameters, but these boundary conditions depend on the global flow and are not, therefore, known a priori. In order to circumvent this difficulty, an adaptive local–global procedure is applied. This entails performing a global coarse-scale simulation with initial estimates for well-block parameters. The resulting pressure and saturation fields are then used to define local boundary conditions for the near-well computations. The overall procedure is applied to several example problems and is shown to provide results in close agreement with reference fine-scale computations. Significant improvement in accuracy over existing near-well upscaling treatments is demonstrated, particularly for a heavy oil case with oil viscosity of ~10⁴ cp.     

Simulation of viscous water column collapse using adapting hierarchical grids

An adaptive hierarchical grid‐based method for predicting complex free surface flows is used to simulate collapse of a water column. Adapting quadtree grids are combined with a high‐resolution interface‐capturing approach and pressure‐based coupling of the Navier–Stokes equations. The Navier–Stokes flow solution scheme is verified for simulation of flow in a lid‐driven cavity at Re=1000. Two approaches to the coupling of the Navier–Stokes equations are investigated as are alternative face velocity and hanging node interpolations. Collapse of a water column as well as collapse of a water column and its subsequent interaction with an obstacle are simulated. The calculations are made on uniform and adapting quadtree grids, and the accuracy of the quadtree calculations is shown to be the same as those made on the equivalent uniform grids. Results are in excellent agreement with experimental and other numerical data. A sharp interface is maintained at the free surface. The new adapting quadtree‐based method achieves a considerable saving in the size of the computational grid and CPU time in comparison with calculations made on equivalent uniform grids. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Upscaling of Channel Systems in Two Dimensions Using Flow-Based Grids

A methodology for the gridding and upscaling of geological systems characterized by channeling is presented. The overall approach entails the use of a flow-based gridding procedure for the generation of variably refined grids capable of resolving the channel geometry, a specialized full-tensor upscaling method to capture the effects of permeability connectivity, and the use of a flux-continuous finite volume method applicable to full tensor permeability fields and non-orthogonal grids. The gridding and upscaling procedures are described in detail and then applied to several two-dimensional systems. Significant improvement in the accuracy of the coarse scale models, relative to that obtained using uniform Cartesian coarse scale models, is achieved in all cases. It is shown that, for some systems, improvement results from the use of the flow-based grid, while in other cases the improvement is mainly due to the new upscaling method.     

Upscaled Unstructured Computational Grids for Efficient Simulation of Flow in Fractured Porous Media

Discrete fracture modeling (DFM) is currently the most promising approach for modeling of naturally fractured reservoirs and simulation of multiphase fluid flow therein. In contrast with the classical double-porosity/double permeability models, in the DFM approach all the interactions and fluid flow in and between the fractures and within the matrix are modeled in a unified manner, using the same computational grid. There is no need for computing the shape factors, which are crucial to the accuracy of the double-porosity models. We have exploited this concept in order to develop a new method for the generation of unstructured computational grids. In the new approach the geological model (GM) of the reservoir is first generated, using square or cubic grid blocks. The GM is then upscaled using a method based on the multiresolution wavelet transformations that we recently developed. The upscaled grid contains a distribution of the square or cubic blocks of various sizes. A map of the blocks’ centers is then used with an optimized Delauney triangulation method and the advancing-front technique, in order to generate the final unstructured triangulated grid suitable for use in any general reservoir simulator with any number of fluid phases. The new method also includes an algorithm for generating fractures that, contrary to the previous methods, does not require modifying their paths due to the complexities that may arise in spatial distribution of the grid blocks. It also includes an effective partitioning of the simulation domain that results in large savings in the computation times. The speed-up in the computations with the new upscaled unstructured grid is about three orders of magnitude over that for the initial GM. Simulation of waterflooding indicates that the agreement between the results obtained with the GM and the upscaled unstructured grid is excellent. The method is equally applicable to the simulations of multiphase flow in unfractured, but highly heterogeneous, reservoirs.     

河道砂油藏的自适应非均匀网格粗化算法

以河道砂的观测深度为确定性数据，由贝叶斯理论通过随机楚模的方法楚立横截面为抛物线形状的河道砂油藏边界面，并将渗透率自适应网格技术应用于河道砂油藏的网格粗化算法中。在渗透率或孔隙度交化异常区域自动采用精细网格，用直接解法求解渗透率或孔隙度交化异常区域的压强分布，而在其他区域采用不均匀网格粗化方法计算，印在流体流速大的区域采用精细网格。用本文方法计算了河道砂油藏的压强分布，结果表明河道砂油藏的三维不均匀自适应网格粗化算法的解在渗透率或孔隙度异常区的压强分布规律更逼近采用精细网格的解，在其他区域压强分布规律非常逼近粗化算法的解，但计算的速度比采用精细网格提高了100多倍。     

Upscaling Non-Darcy Flow

We consider upscaling of non-Darcy flow in heterogeneous porous media. Our approach extends the pressure-based numerical homogenization procedure for linear Darcy flow, due to Durlofsky, to the nonlinear case. The effective coefficients are not constants but rather mildly varying functions of prevailing gradients of pressure. The upscaled model approximates the fine grid model accurately and, in some cases, more accurately than what is expected for Darcy flow; this is due to the non-Darcy effects which suppress heterogeneity. We provide comparisons of alternative approaches as well as consider several variants of numerical realizations of the non-Darcy flow model. Numerical results show effectiveness of the upscaling procedure.     

Generation of Voronoi Grid Based on Vorticity for Coarse-Scale Modeling of Flow in Heterogeneous Formations

We present a novel unstructured coarse grid generation technique based on vorticity for upscaling two-phase flow in permeable media. In the technique, the fineness of the gridblocks throughout the domain is determined by vorticity distribution such that where the larger is the vorticity at a region, the finer are the gridblocks at that region. Vorticity is obtained from single-phase flow on original fine grid, and is utilized to generate a background grid which stores spacing parameter, and is used to steer generation of triangular and finally Voronoi grids. This technique is applied to two channelized and heterogeneous models and two-phase flow simulations are performed on the generated coarse grids and, the results are compared with the ones of fine scale grid and uniformly gridded coarse models. The results show a close match of unstructured coarse grid flow results with those of fine grid, and substantial accuracy compared to uniformly gridded coarse grid model.     

A Multiscale Approach for Geologically and Flow Consistent Modeling

Subsurface geological models are usually constructed on high-resolution grids in a way that various complexities and heterogeneities are depicted properly. Such models, however, cannot be used directly in the current flow simulators, as they are tied with high computational cost. Thus, using upscaling, by which one can produce flow consistent models that can alleviate the computational burden of flow simulators, is inevitable. Although the upscaling methods are able to reproduce the flow responses, they might not retain the initial geological assumptions. The reservoir models are initially constructed on uniform and high-resolution grids and then, if necessary, are upscaled to be used for flow simulations. A subsurface modeling approach that not only preserves the geological heterogeneity but also provides models that can be used, straight or with a small level of upscaling, in the flow simulators is desirable. In this paper, a new multiresolution method based on (1) the importance of conditioning well data and (2) being geologically and flow consistent is presented. This method discretizes the initial model into several regions based on the available data. Then, the initial assumed geological model is converted into, for example, various high- and low-resolution models. Next, the high-resolution model is used for regions with high-quality data (e.g., well locations), while the low-resolution model is used for the remaining areas. Finally, the patterns of these areas are interlocked, which result in a multiresolution geologically and flow consistent subsurface model. The accuracy of this method is demonstrated using two-phase flow simulation on four complex subsurface systems. The results indicate that the same flow responses, in a much less time, are reproduced using the multiscale models. The speed-up factor gained using the proposed method is also several orders of magnitude.     

Computation of complex fluid flows using an adaptive grid method

Recently the concept of adaptive grid computation has received much attention in the computational fluid dynamics research community. This paper continues the previous efforts of multiple one-dimensional procedures in developing and asessing the ideas of adaptive grid computation. The focus points here are the issue of numerical stability induced by the grid distribution and the accuracy comparison with previously reported work. Two two-dimensional problems with complicated characteristics—namely, flow in a channel with a sudden expansion and natural convection in an enclosed square cavity—are used to demonstrate some salient features of the adaptive grid method. For the channel flow, by appropriate distribution of the grid points the numerical algorithm can more effectively dampen out the instabilities, especially those related to artificial boundary treatments, and hence can converge to a steady-state solution more rapidly. For a more accurate finite difference operator, which contains less undesirable numerical diffusion, the present adaptive grid method can yield a steady-state and convergent solution, while uniform grids produce non-convergent and numerically oscillating solutions. Furthermore, the grid distribution resulting from the adaptive procedure is very responsive to the different characteristics of laminar and turbulent flows. For the problem of natural convection, a combination of a multiple one-dimensional adaptive procedure and a variational formulation is found very useful. Comparisons of the solutions on uniform and adaptive grids with the reported benchmark calculations demonstrate the important role that the adaptive grid computation can play in resolving complicated flow characteristics.     

多尺度嵌入式离散裂缝模型模拟方法

天然裂缝性油藏和人工压裂油藏内裂缝形态多样,分布复杂,传统的离散裂缝模型将裂缝作为基岩网格的边界,采用非结构化网格进行网格划分,其划分过程复杂,计算量大。嵌入式离散裂缝模型划分网格时不需要考虑油藏内的裂缝形态,只需对基岩系统进行简单的网格剖分,可以大大降低网格划分的复杂度,从而提高计算效率。然而,在油藏级别的数值模拟和人工压裂裂缝下的产能分析中,仍然存在计算量巨大、模拟时间过长的问题。本文提出嵌入式离散裂缝模型的多尺度数值计算格式,使用多尺度模拟有限差分法研究嵌入式离散裂缝模型渗流问题。通过在粗网格上求解局部流动问题计算多尺度基函数,多尺度基函数可以捕捉裂缝与基岩间的相互关系,反映单元内的非均质性,因此该方法既有传统尺度升级法的计算效率,又可以保证计算精度,数值结果表明这是一种有效的裂缝性油藏数值模拟方法。     

A structured but non‐uniform Cartesian grid‐based model for the shallow water equations

In large‐scale shallow flow simulations, local high‐resolution predictions are often required in order to reduce the computational cost without losing the accuracy of the solution. This is normally achieved by solving the governing equations on grids refined only to those areas of interest. Grids with varying resolution can be generated by different approaches, e.g. nesting methods, patching algorithms and adaptive unstructured or quadtree gridding techniques. This work presents a new structured but non‐uniform Cartesian grid system as an alternative to the existing approaches to provide local high‐resolution mesh. On generating a structured but non‐uniform Cartesian grid, the whole computational domain is first discretized using a coarse background grid. Local refinement is then achieved by directly allocating a specific subdivision level to each background grid cell. The neighbour information is specified by simple mathematical relationships and no explicit storage is needed. Hence, the structured property of the uniform grid is maintained. After employing some simple interpolation formulae, the governing shallow water equations are solved using a second‐order finite volume Godunov‐type scheme in a similar way as that on a uniform grid. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Using Vorticity as an Indicator for the Generation of Optimal Coarse Grid Distribution

An improved vorticity-based gridding technique is presented and applied to create optimal non-uniform Cartesian coarse grid for numerical simulation of two-phase flow. The optimal coarse grid distribution (OCGD) is obtained in a manner to capture variations in both permeability and fluid velocity of the fine grid using a single physical quantity called “vorticity”. Only single-phase flow simulation on the fine grid is required to extract the vorticity. Based on the fine-scale vorticity information, several coarse grid models are generated for a given fine grid model. Then the vorticity map preservation error is used to predict how well each coarse grid model reproduces the fine-scale simulation results. The coarse grid model which best preserves the fine-scale vorticity, i.e. has the minimum vorticity map preservation error is recognized as an OCGD. The performance of vorticity-based optimal coarse grid is evaluated for two highly heterogeneous 2D formations. It is also shown that two-phase flow parameters such as mobility ratio have only minor impact on the performance of the predicted OCGD.     

Simulation of interface and free surface flows in a viscous fluid using adapting quadtree grids

A new adaptive quadtree method for simulating laminar viscous fluid problems with free surfaces and interfaces is presented in this paper. The Navier–Stokes equations are solved with a SIMPLE‐type scheme coupled with the Compressive Interface Capturing Scheme for Arbitrary Meshes (CICSAM) (Numerical prediction of two fluid systems with sharp interfaces, Ph.D. Thesis, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, 1997) volume of fluid (VoF) method and PLIC reconstruction of the volume fraction field during refinement and derefinement processes. The method is demonstrated for interface advection cases in translating and shearing flow fields and found to provide high interface resolution at low computational cost. The new method is also applied to simulation of the collapse of a water column and the results are in excellent agreement with other published data. The quadtree grids adapt to follow the movement of the free surface, whilst maintaining a band of the smallest cells surrounding the surface. The calculation is made on uniform and adapting quadtree grids and the accuracy of the quadtree calculation is shown to be the same as that made on the equivalent uniform grid. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

三维非均匀不稳定渗流方程的二维不均匀粗化算法

在无源汇条件下,根据流过某一个横截面的流体流量等于流过这一横截面内所有精细网格的流体流量之和这一特点提出了粗化网格等效渗透率的计算方法。在粗化区内,利用直接解法求解二维渗流方程,再用这些解合成粗化网格的三维合成解,并由合成解计算粗化网格的等效渗透率。根据精度的要求采用了不均匀网格粗化,在流体流速大的区域采用精细网格。利用所得等效渗透率计算了粗化网格的某三维非均匀不稳定渗流场的压降解,结果表明三维非均匀不稳定渗流方程的二维不均匀粗化解非常逼近采用精细网格的解,但计算的速度比采用精细网格提高了80倍。     

Sequential Upscaling Method

This paper presents a new method for scaling up multiphase flow properties which properly accounts for boundary conditions on the upscaled cell. The scale-up proposed does not require the simulation of a complete finely-gridded model, instead it calls for assumptions allowing the calculation of the boundary conditions related to each block being scaled up. To upscale a coarse block, we have to assume or determine the proper boundary conditions for that coarse block. To date, most scale-up methods have been based on the assumption of steady-state flow associated with uniform fractional flows over all the boundaries of the coarse block. However, such an assumption is not strictly valid when we consider heterogeneities. The concept of injection tubes is introduced: these are hypothetical streamtubes connecting the injection wellbore to all inlet faces of the fine grid cells constituting the block to be scaled up. Injection tubes allow the capturing of the fine-scale flow behavior of a finely-gridded model at the inlet face of the coarse block without having to simulate that fine grid. We describe how to scale up an entire finely-gridded model sequentially using injection tubes to determine the boundary conditions for two-phase flow. This new scale-up method is able to capture almost exactly the fine-scale two-phase flow behavior, such as saturation distributions, inside each isolated coarse-grid domain. Further, the resultant scaled-up relative permeabilities reproduce accurately the spatially-averaged performance of the finely-gridded model throughout the simulation period. The method has been shown to be applicable not only to viscous-dominated flow but also to flow affected by gravity for reasonable viscous-to-gravity ratios.     

The shallow flow equations solved on adaptive quadtree grids

This paper describes an adaptive quadtree grid‐based solver of the depth‐averaged shallow water equations. The model is designed to approximate flows in complicated large‐scale shallow domains while focusing on important smaller‐scale localized flow features. Quadtree grids are created automatically by recursive subdivision of a rectangle about discretized boundary, bathymetric or flow‐related seeding points. It can be fitted in a fractal‐like sense by local grid refinement to any boundary, however distorted, provided absolute convergence to the boundary is not required and a low level of stepped boundary can be tolerated. Grid information is stored as a tree data structure, with a novel indexing system used to link information on the quadtree to a finite volume discretization of the governing equations. As the flow field develops, the grids may be adapted using a parameter based on vorticity and grid cell size. The numerical model is validated using standard benchmark tests, including seiches, Coriolis‐induced set‐up, jet‐forced flow in a circular reservoir, and wetting and drying. Wind‐induced flow in the Nichupté Lagoon, México, provides an illustrative example of an application to flow in extremely complicated multi‐connected regions. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Simulation of Gas Dipole Tests in Fractures at the Intermediate Scale Using a New Upscaling Method

A high-level radioactive waste disposal site may lead to gas generation by different physical mechanisms. As these sites are to be located in areas with low water flow, any small amount of gas can lead to relative high gas pressures, so that multiphase flow analysis becomes relevant. The movement of gas and water through the system has two important implications. Firstly, water flow takes place in unsaturated conditions, and thus travel times of the radioactive particles transported are affected; and secondly, gas can also carry radioactive particles. Therefore, one of the key points in such studies is the time when gas would break through the biosphere under a number of different flow conditions. In fractured zones, gas would flow preferentially through the most conductive features. We consider a two-dimensional system representing an isolated fracture. In each point we assign a local porosity and permeability and a local pressure-saturation relationship. A dipole (injector-producer) gas flow system is generated and the variation in water saturation is studied. A simple method is proposed for obtaining upscaled values for several parameters involved in two-phase flow. It is based on numerical simulation on a block scale assuming steady-state conditions and absence of capillary pressure gradients. The proposed method of upscaling is applied to simulate a dipole test using a coarser grid than that of the reference field. The comparison between the results in both scales shows an encouraging agreement.