Multiphase control volume finite element simulations of fractured reservoirs

With rapid evolution of hardware and software techniques in energy sector, reservoir simulation has become a powerful tool for field development planning and reservoir management. Many of the widely used commercial simulators were originally designed for structured grids and implemented with finite difference method (FDM). In recent years, technical advances in griding, fluid modeling, linear solver, reservoir and geological modeling, etc. have created new opportunities. At the same time, new reservoir simulation technology is required for solving large-scale heterogeneous problems.; A three-dimensional, three-phase black-oil reservoir simulator has been developed using the control volume finite element (CVFE) formulation. Flux-based upstream weighting is employed to ensure flux continuity. The CVFE method is embedded in a fully-implicit formulation. State-of-the-art parallel, linear solvers are used. The implementation takes the advantages of object-oriented programming capabilities of C++ to provide maximum reuse and extensibility for future students. The results from the simulator have excellent agreement with those from commercial simulators. The convergence properties of the new simulator are verified using the method of manufactured solutions. The pressure and saturation solutions are verified to be first-order convergent as expected. The efficiency of the simulators and their capability to handle real large-scale field models are improved by implementing the models in parallel.; Another aspect of the work dealt with multiphase flow of fractured reservoirs was performed. The discrete-fracture model is implemented in the simulator. Fractures and faults are represented by lines and planes in two- and three-dimensional spaces, respectively. The difficult task of generating an unstructured mesh for complex domains with fractures and faults is accomplished in this study. Applications of this model for two-phase and three-phase simulations in a variety of fractured domains are demonstrated. These domains are geometrically complex and not easily represented by traditional finite difference formulation. Capillary pressure functions play an important role in determining recovery behavior. Different combinations of capillary pressures in rock matrix and fractures are examined with the simulator. The simulator is also applied to provide new insight and understanding of oil production from basement reservoirs.