Fully Implicit Black-Oil Simulation on Personal Computers

Abstract

Abstract For many difficult reservoir simulation problems, the fully implicit black-oil models are the only efficient and viable means to the solution. Because of their stringent demands on computer's power, the fully implicit simulators are generally run on mini, main or super computers. However, the current trend of 32-bit microprocessors being used in the main-stream Personal Computers(PC) opens a new horizon for reservoir simulation applications. This paper examines the feasibility of a fully implicit black-oil simulator run on these PCs. The simulator uses a general black-oil formulation and can solve 3-dimensioual. 3-phase problems with multi-layered wells. Two aspects which affect the applicability of personal computer environment in reservoir simulation are addressed. First, various considerations for model's efficiency in program design and coding are discussed. Second, the model's performance and requirements on different PC systems are compared. The calculation examples show that the fully implicit black-oil model presented can be run efficiently on the current i386 type of PCs for problems up to several thousands grid blocks. For putting the advances of personal computer environment in perspective, some runs made on the new IBM RISC/6000 320 desktop are also presented.