A segregated flow scheme to control numerical dispersion for multi-component flow simulations

Abstract

One of the challenges for reservoir simulation is numerical dispersion. For waterflooding applications the effect is controlled due to the self-sharpening nature of a Buckley–Leverett shock. However, for multi-component flow simulations, incorrect wavespeeds can develop leading to the excessive smearing of fronts because of the coupling of compositional dispersion with the fractional flow. Rather than implementing a higher-order discretization method, we propose a simple scheme based on segregation-in-flow within a gridblock to control numerical dispersion. We extend the method originally proposed for polymer flooding to augmented waterflooding simulations in general as well as simulations of miscible or near miscible gas injection. For compositional simulations of gas injection, this is done through a coupled limited-flash/upstream-exclusion assumption. To test the scheme, an in-house streamline simulator has been modified and validated for modeling low-salinity floods as well as ternary two-phase displacements. Simulation results presented with and without segregation demonstrate the potential of the approach as a heuristic method to control numerical dispersion in multi-component flow simulations.