Numerical simulation of two‐dimensional transient water driven non‐Newtonian fluid flow in porous media

Abstract

AbstractNumerical simulation of two‐dimensional transient water driven non‐Newtonian fluid flow in porous media has been performed. The hyperbolic non‐Newtonian fluid model was used to describe the characteristics of non‐Newtonian fluid flow. Governing equations were first approximated by implicit finite difference, and then solved by a stabilized bi‐conjugate gradient (Bi‐CGSTAB) approach. A comparison of the numerical results for the case of water driven Newtonian fluid was made to validate the numerical method. For water driven Newtonian fluid flow, it was found that the numerical results are satisfactorily consistent with those obtained by commercial software VIP which is the abbreviation of vector implicit procedure for numerical simulation of Newtonian fluid flow in porous media. The maximum deviation for average pressure is less than 1.5 per cent; the distribution of water saturation is almost the same as that obtained by VIP. For water driven non‐Newtonian fluid flow in porous media, it was found that the factor of pressure gradient of the non‐Newtonian fluid has significant effects on the process of oil recovery. The correction of numerical simulation based on the global mass balance plays an important role in oil reservoir simulation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.