Application of the θ-method to a telegraphic model of fluid flow in a dual-porosity medium

Abstract

This work focuses mainly on the study of numerical solutions, which are obtained using the θ-method, of a generalized Warren and Root model that includes a second-order wave-like equation in its formulation. The solutions approximately describe the single-phase hydraulic head in fractures by considering the finite velocity of propagation by means of a Cattaneo-like equation. The corresponding discretized model is obtained by utilizing a non-uniform grid and a non-uniform time step. A simple relationship is proposed to give the time-step distribution. Convergence is analyzed by comparing results from explicit, fully implicit, and Crank–Nicolson schemes with exact solutions: a telegraphic model of fluid flow in a single-porosity reservoir with relaxation dynamics, the Warren and Root model, and our studied model, which is solved with the inverse Laplace transform. We find that the flux and the hydraulic head have spurious oscillations that most often appear in small-time solutions but are attenuated as the solution time progresses. Furthermore, we show that the finite difference method is unable to reproduce the exact flux at time zero. Obtaining results for oilfield production times, which are in the order of months in real units, is only feasible using parallel implicit schemes. In addition, we propose simple parallel algorithms for the memory flux and for the explicit scheme.