Simulation of Compositional Reservoir Phenomena on a Distributed-Memory Parallel Computer

Abstract

Distributed-memory parallel computer architectures appear to offer high performance at moderate cost for reservoir simulation applications. In particular, the simulation of compositional reservoir phenomena shows great promise for parallel applications because of the large parallel content of the compositional formulations. This paper focuses on the application of a distributed-memory parallel computer, the iPSC/860, to the solution of two compositional simulations: one based on the Third SPE Comparative Solution problem and another based on a real production compositional model. An improved linear equation solution technique based on multigrid and domain decomposition methods is compared with other techniques in serial and parallel environments. For a hypothetical heterogeneous example, the new technique showed a high degree of parallel efficiency. Finally, results show that performance of the compositional simulations with a fully parallel simulator is comparable to that of current mainframe supercomputers.

Parallel algorithms for modeling flow in permeable media. Annual report, February 15, 1995 - February 14, 1996

“…Later, Rutledge et al (1991) ported a three-phase three-dimensional black-oil simulator to a parallel architecture and successfully simulated a reservoir problem with two million gridblocks. Killough and Bhogeswara (1991) The research that this report summarizes involves the application of distributedmemory computing practices on CRAY T3D and CRAY T3E. Each processor in the network exclusively owns its memory and computing power.…”

A Linear Equation Solver for Massively Parallel Computers

“…However, Wallis' solver used a one-dimensional domain-decomposition preconditioner and is therefore not suitable for massively parallel systems. Killough et al 3 This paper describes a parallel linear equation solver that is suitable for large and small scale parallel computers. It is based on the preconditioned generalized conjugate residual method.…”

A multi-continuum multi-phase parallel simulator for large-scale conventional and unconventional reservoirs

“…To conquer these two issues, parallel computation techniques have been involved in reservoir simulations. Since 1980s, various of parallel simulators were developed (Li et al, 1995;Wheeler and Smith, 1989;Rutledge et al, 1991;Shiralkar et al, 1997;Parashar et al, 1997;Kaarstad et al, 1995;Killough and Bhogeswara, 1991;Killough et al, 1997). In (Dogru et al, 2002(Dogru et al, , 2009), Dogru et al developed a parallel simulator, GigaPOWERS, which has been successfully applied to a case with one billion gird cells, and a truncated Neumann series preconditioner is developed.…”