A global implicit solver for miscible reactive multiphase multicomponent flow in porous media

Abstract

We present a numerical framework for efficiently simulating partially miscible two-phase flow with multicomponent reactive transport in porous media using the global implicit approach. The mathematical model consists of coupled and nonlinear partial differential equations, ordinary differential equations, and algebraic equations. Our approach is based on a model-preserving reformulation using the reduction scheme of Krautle and Knabner (Water Resour. Res. 43(3), 2007), Hoffmann et al. (Comput. Geosci. 16(4):1081–1099, 2012) to transform the system. Moreover, a nonlinear, implicitly defined resolution function to reduce its size is employed. By choosing persistent primary variables and using a complementarity approach, mineral reactions and the local appearance and disappearance of the gas phase can be handled without a discontinuous switch of primary variables. In each time step of the Euler-implicit time stepping scheme, the discrete nonlinear systems are solved using the Semismooth Newton method for linearization using the global implicit approach. Thus, we obtain an efficient, robust, and stable simulation method allowing for large time steps and avoiding the potential drawbacks of splitting approaches.