A multiscale modeling study for the convective mass transfer in a subsurface aquifer

Abstract

Quantitative and realistic computer simulations of mass transfer associated with CO 2 disposal in subsurface aquifers is a challenging endeavor. This article has proposed a novel and efficient multiscale modeling framework, and has examined its potential to study the penetrative mass transfer in a CO 2 plume that migrates in an aquifer. Numerical simulations indicate that the migration of the injected CO 2 enhances the vorticity generation, and the dissolution of CO 2 has a strong effect on the natural convection mass transfer. The vorticity decays with the increase of the porosity. The time scale of the vertical migration of a CO 2 plume is strongly dependent on the rate of CO 2 dissolution. Comparisons confirm the near optimal performance of the proposed multiscale model. These primary results with an idealized computational model of the CO 2 migration in an aquifer brings the potential of the proposed multiscale model to the field of heat and mass transfer in the geoscience.keywords:mass transfer multiscale modeling porous media CO 2 plume subsurface flow aquifer wavelet method numerical modeling.

A numerical study of two-phase miscible flow through porous media with a Lagrangian model

“…One is the fully coupled solver, which resolves the dependence between the pressure and the saturation accurately at each iterative step by simultaneously discretizing all variables into one nonlinear system. 11,[18][19][20] However, the computational cost and memory requirement may restrict the application of the fully coupled approach, particularly when the number of degrees of freedom is large. The coupled solver is often robust if an appropriate pre-conditioner is available.…”

“…The entire solver used for this research has been implemented as a module of the computational fluid dynamics code, , which solves the Navier–Stokes equations and was fully verified for several other applications. 19,20 The following algorithm outlines the implementation of the methodology proposed in this article: …”

“…The coupled solver is often robust if an appropriate pre-conditioner is available. 20 The other approach is the segregated solver, which treats the entire problem as a collection of sub-problems, each of which may be solved independently by individual schemes. The segregated solver is often flexible with respect to the fully coupled solver.…”