Multiscale Numerical Experiments on Multiphase Flow using a Geologically Realistic Numerical Testbed
EMSL Project ID
49066
Abstract
The dynamics of multiphase fluid flow and immiscible displacement play an important role in many subsurface applications including water drainage and imbibition, geological carbon sequestration, enhanced oil and gas recovery, and remediation of non-aqueous phase liquid contamination. Multiphase flow processes in porous media involve complex interactions of multiple fluid and solid phases including effects of surficial forces that lead to flow instabilities and fingering phenomena. Physical two-phase flow experiments using microfluidics systems have previously quantified three stability regimes defined by the dimensionless capillary number (Ca) and viscosity ratio (M): 1) viscous fingering, 2) capillary fingering, and 3) stable displacement. Previous work using EMSL's microfluidics capabilities demonstrated that these instability effects have important manifestations at larger scales, and in particular impact the form and parameterization of constitutive flow relationships (pressure-saturation-permeability) that are essential to numerical reservoir simulators. However, these effects are very difficult to incorporate into conventional reservoir simulations because of the large disparity in physical scales. The effects of flow instabilities are likely to be confounded by physical heterogeneities, which span many orders of magnitude in geological reservoirs at scales from individual pores and grains (O~10-5 m) to geological formations (O~103 m). These challenges have gone largely unaddressed to date because of limitations in observational capabilities and computational constraints. We propose to perform pore-scale and continuum-scale simulations of multiphase flow, coupled together using a lookup table approach applied to the parameters of constitutive relationships at the continuum scale, to evaluate the multiscale nature of multiphase flow in complex heterogeneous systems. This work will utilize a previously-developed numerical model of a subsurface aquifer describing multiscale hierarchical structure of a braided river deposit. Parallel simulations will be run on Cascade using multiphase simulators at the pore scale (e.g. SPH, STAR-CCM+, OpenFOAM) and at the continuum scale (eSTOMP-CO2). This work is funded through an industrial collaboration with ExxonMobil Corporate Strategic Research, and is led by EMSL staff member Tim Scheibe.
Project Details
Start Date
2015-09-11
End Date
2015-09-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Co-Investigator(s)
Team Members