A New Enriched Finite Element Method to Simulate Hydrocarbon Reservoirs Containing Subsurface Features

Huang, Hao; Wan, Jing; Dale, Bruce A.; Brown, William P.; Long, Ted

doi:10.2118/125634-ms

“…The new approach may be used to provide fast and high resolution simulations for the near-well flow simulation in well performance studies [13]. Coupling of the new approach with geomechanics will lead to the solution of a wide range of important subsurface problems, such as hydraulic fracture and casing integrity analysis in complicated geological conditions [14,15].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, the proposed numerical formulation can also be used for transient or non-Darcy flow problems with little modification [14].…”

Section: Enriched Finite Element Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

On the use of enriched finite element method to model subsurface features in porous media flow problems

Huang

¹

,

Long

²

,

Wan

³

et al. 2011

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In this paper, a new enrichment scheme is proposed to model fractures and other conduits in porous media flow problems. Inserting this scheme into a partition of unity based method results in a new numerical method that does not require the mesh to honor the specific geometry of these subsurface features. The new scheme involves a specially designed integration procedure and enrichment functions, which can capture effects of local heterogeneity introduced by subsurface features on the pressure solution. The new method is also capable of modeling fractures with low as well as high conductivity. Another feature of the proposed scheme is that, even though two enrichment functions are used to model the permeability change at the two rock/fracture interfaces of a fracture, only one element partition is made for numerical integration. To demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed approach, production problems for wells that were stimulated or completed by longitudinal fracture, transverse fractures, and perforations are studied.

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Using a fully coupled flow and geomechanical simulator to model injection into heavy oil reservoirs

Huang

¹

,

Wattenbarger

²

,

Gai

³

et al. 2012

Numerical Methods in Fluids

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SUMMARY In this paper, the geomechanical factors that may affect injection processes in heavy oil recovery are investigated. To accurately capture the geomechanical effects, we employed a numerical formulation that allows fully coupling of nonlinear geomechanical deformation and multicomponent porous media flows. Two salient features of this new coupling formulation are the following: (1) all flow and geomechanical equations are solved implicitly in one single matrix equation, and (2) it allows reuse of matrices from both a traditional fully implicit multicomponent reservoir simulator and a nonlinear geomechanics simulator. The former feature ensures stable coupling between the reservoir flow and geomechanics, and the latter significantly reduces the programming work. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the accuracy and convergence performance of the new formulation. The proposed formulation is then applied to model injection into heavy oil reservoirs. The numerical investigation revealed that geomechanical factors, such as in situ stress anisotropy and the uneven deformation of reservoir rock and attached impermeable rock, can result in skewed or nonuniform plastic strain and, hence, alter the sweep of the injected fluid. Coupled geomechanics simulation also gives rather different transient pressure response from that of uncoupled simulation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Using a Fully-Coupled Flow and Geomechanical Simulator To Model Injection Into Heavy-Oil Reservoirs

Huang

¹

,

Wattenbarger

²

,

Gai

³

et al. 2010

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

SUMMARY In this paper, the geomechanical factors that may affect injection processes in heavy oil recovery are investigated. To accurately capture the geomechanical effects, we employed a numerical formulation that allows fully coupling of nonlinear geomechanical deformation and multicomponent porous media flows. Two salient features of this new coupling formulation are the following: (1) all flow and geomechanical equations are solved implicitly in one single matrix equation, and (2) it allows reuse of matrices from both a traditional fully implicit multicomponent reservoir simulator and a nonlinear geomechanics simulator. The former feature ensures stable coupling between the reservoir flow and geomechanics, and the latter significantly reduces the programming work. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the accuracy and convergence performance of the new formulation. The proposed formulation is then applied to model injection into heavy oil reservoirs. The numerical investigation revealed that geomechanical factors, such as in situ stress anisotropy and the uneven deformation of reservoir rock and attached impermeable rock, can result in skewed or nonuniform plastic strain and, hence, alter the sweep of the injected fluid. Coupled geomechanics simulation also gives rather different transient pressure response from that of uncoupled simulation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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A New Enriched Finite Element Method to Simulate Hydrocarbon Reservoirs Containing Subsurface Features

Cited by 5 publications

References 10 publications

On the use of enriched finite element method to model subsurface features in porous media flow problems

On the use of enriched finite element method to model subsurface features in porous media flow problems

Using a fully coupled flow and geomechanical simulator to model injection into heavy oil reservoirs

Using a Fully-Coupled Flow and Geomechanical Simulator To Model Injection Into Heavy-Oil Reservoirs

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