Streamline-based Method Research Articles

Erratum for “Streamline-Based Method for Reconstruction of Complex Braided River Bathymetry”

Erratum for “Streamline-Based Method for Reconstruction of Complex Braided River Bathymetry”

Review of the Upper Bound Method for Application to Metal Forming Processes

In this paper, we review the upper bound method in plasticity with special reference to metal forming processes. We focus on the method itself, solution methods, and restrictions of the upper bound method. Particular upper bound solutions are not considered. The upper bound theorem is formulated using the work function, which is different from conventional proofs. This approach allows for a unified formulation for several types of rigid plastic materials. The solution methods include upper bound elemental techniques, streamline-based methods, and singular solutions. The major restrictions are related to stationary processes and friction laws.

Streamlines Based Stochastic Methods and Reactive Transport Simulation Applied to Resource Estimation of Roll-Front Uranium Deposits Exploited by In-Situ Leaching

Roll-front uranium deposits are ore mineralizations that occur in sandstones or arkoses downstream from redox fronts or reduced/oxidized geochemical barriers. They are often bounded above and below by impermeable shaly/muddy layers making them ideal for in-situ leaching exploitation. Several stochastic simulations were previously investigated either to characterize the ore grade distribution within roll-front type deposits, or for describing geological processes involved in their formation. This work suggests some modifications/improvements of conventional geostatistical algorithms for honoring hydrodynamic constraints that govern fluid flows in ore bearing layers. In particular, instead of using the classical Euclidian or curvilinear (for Sgrid) distance for computing the variogram, it is proposed to calculate the variogram accounting for the time of flight (TOF) of water particles down the streamlines together with available well data. Non-deterministic streamline-based methods seem to provide more accurate interpolation results and resource estimation compared to a traditional geostatistical approach when applied to roll-front deposits.

Numerical simulation of oil-water displacements in naturally fractured reservoirs using a hybrid grid MPFA-streamline (SLS-HyG) formulation

The numerical simulation of fluid displacements in naturally fractured reservoirs is rather expensive in terms of CPU requirements and challenging, due to the random spatial distribution of fractures of different sizes and shapes. In this paper, we present a numerical formulation to simulate the 2-D two-phase flow of oil and water in naturally fractured oil reservoirs using unstructured quadrilateral meshes. In our Hybrid-Grid MPFA-Streamline (SLS-HyG) formulation, the elliptic pressure equation is discretised by a finite volume method with a Multipoint Flux Approximation using a Diamond stencil. This formulation is able to handle a full permeability tensor representation in an arbitrary polygonal grid. For the advective saturation problem, we used the streamline-based method, which decouples the transport equations into several 1-D problems solved along each streamline. These formulations were implemented in the framework of the Hybrid-Grid (HyG) representation of fractures, where the fractures in the physical domain are represented by 1-D objects in 2-D domains and extended to the same dimension of the matrix problem. The coupling between the flow and the transport problem is done by a modified implicit pressure explicit saturation procedure. We have solved some reference problems from the literature, obtaining promising results when compared to other classical formulations.

Seasonal Variation of the Surface Kuroshio Intrusion into the South China Sea Evidenced by Satellite Geostrophic Streamlines

AbstractThe long-term satellite altimeter and reanalysis data show that large seasonal variations are associated with geostrophic Kuroshio intrusion, but not with the current intensity, width and axis position east of Philippine. To address this issue, we examine the seasonal variability of surface intrusion patterns by a new streamline-based method. The along-streamline analysis reveals that the seasonality of geostrophic intrusion is only attributed to the cyclonic shear part of the flow, while the anticyclonic shear part always leaps across the Luzon Strait. A possible physical mechanism is proposed to accommodate these seasonal characteristics based on globally the vorticity (torque work) balance between the basin-wide negative wind stress curl and the positive vorticity fluxes induced by the lateral wall, as well as locally loss of balance between the torques of frictional stresses and normal stresses owing to the boundary gap. Through modifying the nearshore sea surface level, the northeasterly/southeasterly monsoon increases/decreases the positive vorticity fluxes in response to global vorticity balance, and simultaneously amplifies/alleviates the local imbalance by enhancing/reducing the positive frictional stress torque within the cyclonic shear layer. Therefore, in winter when the positive torque is large enough, the Kuroshio splits and the intrusion occurs, while in summer the stress torque is so weak that the entire current keeps flowing north.

Streamline-Based Method for Reconstruction of Complex Braided River Bathymetry

AbstractReconstruction of complex braided river bathymetry is important for supporting hydrodynamic simulation and understanding river morphological processes. To our knowledge, existing methods ge...

Three-Dimensional Streamline Tracing Method over Tetrahedral Domains

Getting a clear understanding of the fluid velocity field in underground porous media is critical to various engineering applications, such as oil/gas reservoirs, CO2 sequestration, groundwater, etc. As an effective visualization tool and efficient transport behaviors solution algorithm, the streamline-based method was improved significantly by numerous studies conducted in the last couple of decades. However, the implementation of streamline simulation is still challenging while working with Finite Element Method (FEM) over 3D tetrahedral domains, where the mass conservation is not guaranteed. Considering the increased computational cost to enforce mass conservation in FEM and additional complexity, a new three-dimensional streamline tracing algorithm is presented that only relies on the velocity vector of a flow field on each vertex of a tetrahedron in a 3D unstructured mesh system. Owning to the shape functions and transformation equations between the master element and actual element, the exit coordinate leaving a tetrahedral element can be determined effectively. As a result, Time of Flight (TOF), the coordinate variable along each streamline, can be calculated accurately and efficiently because that the analytical solution depicting the trajectory in Master Element is deduced. The presented streamline-based method is tested under FEniCS, a programming framework for FEM, which eases the implementation and further development of the presented method.

Assessment of streamline-based pressure reconstruction for PIV data in supersonic flows with shock waves

In this paper, a streamline-based (SLB) pressure reconstruction method for particle image velocimetry (PIV) data, which has great potential to reduce the error propagation across relatively strong shock wave (compared with the conventional spatial integration method) and decrease computation cost and operation difficulty [compared with the MacCormack method (Liu et al. 2017, 2019)] in supersonic flows, is comprehensively analyzed and evaluated by numerical and experimental velocity fields. First, the theoretical error model caused by particle relaxation is built by an oblique shock wave. Then, the feasibility of this method in five typical kinds of shock flows is verified based on a simulated Mach interaction velocity field generated by two wedges of 17° and 22°. Besides, the effects of random velocity error, streamline resolution, velocity spatial resolution and out-of-plane component on the pressure reconstruction are also analyzed in detail. Finally, the PIV measurements of oblique and bow shock waves with a free stream Mach number of 2.91 are conducted for experimental validation. These results confirm the feasibility, robustness and good accuracy of the SLB method in supersonic flows with relatively strong shock waves.

Application of Flow Diagnostics to Rapid Production Data Integration in Complex Grids and Dual-Permeability Models

SummaryStreamline-based methods, as repeatedly demonstrated in multiple applications, offer a robust and elegant framework for reconciling high-resolution geologic models with observed field responses. However, significant challenges persist with the application of streamline-based methods in complex grids and dual-permeability media due to the difficulty with streamline tracing in these systems. In this work, we propose a novel and efficient framework that circumvents these challenges by avoiding explicit tracing of streamlines but exploits the inherent desirable features of streamline-based production data integration in high-resolution geologic models.Our approach features the application of flow diagnostics to inverse problems involving the integration of multiphase production data in reservoir models. Here, time-of-flight as well as numerical tracer concentrations for each well, on the basis of a defined flux field, are computed on the native finite-volume grid. The information embedded in these metrics are used in the dynamic definition of stream-bundles and, eventually, in the computation of analytical water arrival-time sensitivities with respect to model properties. This calculation mimics the streamline-derived analytical sensitivity computation used in the well-established generalized travel-time inversion (GTTI) technique but precludes explicit streamline tracing. The reservoir model property field is updated iteratively by solving the LSQR (sparse least-squares with QR factorization) system composed of the computed analytical sensitivity and the optimal water travel-time shift, augmented with regularization and smoothness constraints.The power and efficacy of our approach are demonstrated using synthetic model and field applications. We first validate our approach by benchmarking with the streamline-based GTTI algorithm involving a single-permeability medium. The flow-diagnostics-derived analytical sensitivities were observed to show good agreement with the streamline-derived sensitivities in terms of correctly capturing relevant spatiotemporal trends. Furthermore, the desirable quasilinear behavior characteristic of the traditional streamline-based GTTI technique was preserved. The flow-diagnostics-based inversion technique is then applied to a field-scale problem involving the integration of multiphase production data into a dual-permeability model of a large naturally fractured reservoir. The results clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in overcoming the limitations of classical streamline-based methods with dual-permeability systems. By construction, this approach finds direct application in single/multicontinuum models with generic grid designs, both in structured and fully unstructured formats, thereby aiding well-level history matching and high-resolution updates of modern geologic models.This work presents, for the first time, an application of the GTTI to dual-permeability models of naturally fractured reservoirs. This is facilitated by a simplified, yet effective approach to travel-time sensitivity computations directly on finite-volume grids. The proposed approach can be easily applied to subsurface models at levels of complexity identified as challenging for classical streamline-based methods.

Implementation of streamline simulation based on finite element method in FEniCS

Understanding flow and transport behaviors in subsurface porous rock is extremely important for various applications such as oil/gas reservoirs, groundwater, geothermal energy explorations, and CO2 sequestration. However, the relevant calculation is never an easy task because of the large areal extend and high heterogeneity of subsurface system. Although streamline-based simulations are suitable for solving large, geologically complex, and heterogeneous systems, they still present difficulties while working with the finite element method. This paper introduces a new algorithm to trace streamlines based on the underlying flow field in unstructured triangular mesh systems. The new solution procedure only requires velocities on each element vertex but not on cell facets, and therefore it does not rely on conservative fluxes. The algorithm is based on coupled ODEs derived from shape functions as well as the transformation formula between the actual and master elements. The analytical solution describing the trajectory of a streamline segment in the master element is derived so that the time-of-flight and exit coordinate (leaving the element) can be determined accurately and efficiently. Additionally, the presented algorithm allows the implementation of streamline-based methods in the programming framework, FEniCS, so as to extend the technique to other research areas.

Array Antenna Gain Enhancement With the Poynting Streamline Method

Streamlines of the Poynting vector field connect antenna figures of merit with the energy flow characteristics near a receiving antenna. Poynting streamlines properties and absorption aperture of antenna under different load conditions have been studied in this letter. Based on its Poynting streamline characteristics, the short-circuit dipole can be used as a parasitic element to direct the flow of energy, increase the absorption aperture, and enhance the gain of the array. Numerical examples show that this strategy can not only enhance the gain of dipole array, but also improve the gain of circularly polarized antenna array without deteriorating the axial ratio. Poynting streamline-based methods augment commonly used radiation-mode antenna analysis techniques by providing an intuitive and visual way to guide the design of antenna arrays.

Model calibration and optimization of a post-combustion CO2 WAG pilot in a mature oil field

A carbon dioxide (CO2) water-alternating-gas (WAG) pilot was conducted to gain insights into tertiary oil recovery potential via CO2 flood in the West Ranch Field as part of the Petra Nova project, the world's largest post-combustion CO2 capture and utilization initiative. With a fluvial formation geology, this is a challenging and novel application of CO2 enhanced oil recovery. The aim of this study is two-fold. First, to build a predictive dynamic model that incorporates the data acquired during the pilot operation. Second, to utilize this model to provide guidance for optimal design for a field-wide CO2 EOR operation.This study began with an initialization of the pilot sector model extracted from a calibrated full-field model. The pilot model calibration follows a two-step hierarchical workflow. First, we performed a large-scale update of the permeability distribution by integrating available bottomhole pressure and multiphase production data. Next, local permeability field is fine-tuned using a streamline-based method to match CO2 breakthrough times at the producers. The predictive capability of the calibrated model was verified through two blind validation tests: (1) the model showed good agreement with saturation logs acquired at two observation wells; and (2) the model reproduced the CO2 recovery as a fraction of the injected CO2.Sensitivity studies were conducted using the calibrated pilot model to evaluate the effects of various operational parameters. Finally, we performed a Design of Experiment based multi-objective optimization of the CO2 WAG processes using the influential operational parameters identified from the sensitivity analysis.

Production Optimization in Waterfloods: A New Approach to Interwell-Connectivity Modeling

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 182450, “Production Optimization in Waterfloods With a New Approach to Interwell-Connectivity Modeling,” by Xiang Zhai, Tailai Wen, and Sebastien Matringe, Quantum Reservoir Impact, prepared for the 2016 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Perth, Australia, 25–27 October. The paper has not been peer reviewed. In the complete paper, the authors present a novel methodology to model interwell connectivity in mature waterfloods and achieve an improved reservoir-energy distribution and sweep pattern to maximize production performance by adjusting injection and production strategy on the well-control level. The method involves a reduced-physics-based fast numerical tracer test on each well, which yields interwell connection strength or well-allocation factors (WAFs), and then a data-driven efficiency model on each interwell connection calibrated automatically from the injection and production history of the reservoir. Introduction The approach combines and balances the advantages of both simulation and data-driven techniques. The approach models interwell connections based on a relatively mature waterflood history and performs fast forecast and waterflood optimization on the basis of the interwell-connection analysis. Injector/producer connections are identified by computing WAFs with a numerical tracer method. Then, a data-driven empirical efficiency model is adopted that de-fines the profile of the oil cut of each interwell connection, and reservoir-production history is used to calibrate the model. Therefore, each interwell connection is quantified with two critical parameters: WAF and connection efficiency. The reservoir model is simplified into a connection-based network model that can be used to predict oil and water production without use of rigorous time-dependent numerical simulation. A production-optimization algorithm is then implemented. The optimization objective is to minimize water production while maintaining oil-production rate, subject to a range of practical constraints. The production optimization is integrated into a numerical-simulation model, and a blind test is run for 6 months. A significant decrease in water production is observed. Methodology Waterflood Surveillance. WAF. In the process of waterflooding, water is injected into injectors to displace remaining oil. In this water/oil communication system, incompressibility is assumed in fluid dynamics and reservoir rock. This assumption is equivalent to assuming that pressure communication between any two points in the reservoir is essentially instantaneous. The WAF quantifies the strength of connection between two wells of different types. WAF is often computed by tracing streamlines and counting the number of streamlines between wells. However, the streamline-based method is incompatible with a dual-porosity system, and in general has poor performance in unstructured grids. The authors adopt a stationary numerical tracer method to compute WAF. The equations used in this process are presented in the complete paper.

Streamline-based history matching of bottomhole pressure and three-phase production data using a multiscale approach

Reconciling geological models to the available dynamic information, commonly known as history matching, is an essential step for optimizing reservoir management and field development strategies, including improved recovery methods. There are several challenges in the current history matching workflow, particularly for high resolution geologic models with multimillion cells and complex geologic architecture. Streamline-based inverse modeling has shown great promise in this respect because of computational efficiency and analytic calculation of sensitivity of production response to reservoir properties. However, the current streamline-based approach has mostly been applied to history matching water-cut and tracer response in two-phase flow.More recently streamline-based sensitivity calculations have been extended to bottomhole pressure and gas-oil ratio. This allows for generalization of streamline-based history matching to the three-phase. In this paper we present an integrated application of the streamline-based three-phase history matching by incorporating water-cut, gas-oil ratio and bottomhole pressure data while updating high resolution geologic models. The crux of our approach lies in the analytic computation of well response sensitivities based on streamline which allows for efficient inversion of production and pressure data. We also validate the accuracy and efficiency of the streamline-based bottomhole pressure sensitivities by comparison with an adjoint-based method using a finite-difference simulator. In the history matching workflow, we incorporate the streamline-based method within a multiscale framework to account for the disparity in resolution of different types of history data. This integrated method proposed in this paper leads to capturing of the large- and fine-scale heterogeneity while matching the pressure and production responses efficiently.We demonstrate the power and utility of the streamline-based approach using synthetic and field applications with three phases. The synthetic example involves the SPE9 benchmark field case with waterflooding and aquifer drive. The field example involves full-field history matching of the Norne Field in the North Sea using water-cut, gas-oil ratio and bottomhole pressure data. The proposed multiscale workflow clearly demonstrates the power and advantage of our approach in achieving geologically consistent history matching at the full-field level.

Streamline-Based History Matching for Multicomponent Compositional Systems

This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper SPE 174750, “Streamline-Based History Matching of Arrival Times and Bottomhole-Pressure Data for Multicomponent Compositional Systems,” by Shusei Tanaka, Dongjae Kam, Akhil Datta-Gupta, and Michael J. King, Texas A&M University, prepared for the 2015 SPE Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition, Houston, 28–30 September. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Streamline-based history-matching techniques have provided significant capabilities in integrating field-scale water-cut and tracer data into high-resolution geologic models. However, application of the streamline-based approach for simultaneous integration of water cut and bottomhole pressure (BHP) has been rather limited. In this paper, the authors introduce a novel semianalytic approach to compute the sensitivity of the BHP data with respect to gridblock properties. Introduction The streamline-based method has many advantages in terms of computational efficiency and applicability. The main advantage of the streamline-based method is that it is able to calculate parameter sensitivity with a single streamline simulation or post-processing of the grid-based finite-difference simulation results. The calculated sensitivity is comparable with the sensitivities computed from numerical perturbation or with adjoint-based sensitivities. It is possible to calculate the parameter sensitivity from a commercial finite-difference simulator by use of streamlines traced using the flux field. This allows accounting for detailed physics by means of finite-difference simulation while taking advantage of the power of the streamlines for sensitivity computations. Streamline and Parameter Sensitivity Streamline-based history matching starts with the tracing of streamlines from a given set of static and dynamic conditions. This process is outlined in detail in the complete paper. Amplitude, Travel-Time, and Generalized Travel-Time Inversion (GTTI) Methods The approach to minimizing the objective function through all the observed points and simulation results is defined as amplitude inversion. The travel-time inversion, instead, attempts to match single reference times such as water-breakthrough point or peak tracer response. The amplitude matching is general in terms of reduction of the objective function, because while the travel-time inversion reduces the objective function at only a single point, the amplitude matching can cover all the data points. However, the travel-time-based approach is often used because amplitude inversion is a highly nonlinear problem and presents difficulties in computational cost and in reducing the objective function when there is a large amount of wells and data points.

Streamline-based inversion of formation properties from formation-tester measurements acquired in high-angle and horizontal wells

A new method is developed based on streamlines to determine the reservoir properties from formation-tester measurements. To do so, a previously developed finite-difference reservoir model is coupled with a streamline method to simulate the near-wellbore dynamic measurements in the presence of invasion and arbitrary fluid distributions. The streamline method is specifically developed to overcome technical challenges in modeling deviated wells in heterogeneous reservoirs efficiently. In this study, synthetic reservoir models are constructed based on measurements acquired in offshore well A with 15o deviation angle. The streamline-based method is then implemented to simulate packer-type formation-tester measurements and to appraise permeability of multi-layer reservoirs. In addition, transient measurements from a focused-sampling probe-type formation tester is modeled with streamline method to estimate relative permeability and anisotropy in offshore well B. Inversion results indicate that the accuracy of estimated formation properties is higher for formations with larger mobility because more streamlines trace flow into probes from large-mobility layers. For offshore well A, in the presence of 5% zero-mean Gaussian additive noise, the uncertainty of permeability varies from 6% to 38% for layers with high and low mobilities, respectively. The uncertainty increases to 8% and 41% for high and low mobility cases, respectively, when 5% skewed-Gaussian noise contaminates the measurements. The coupled finite-difference and streamline-based inversion method (FDSM) is then compared to a previously validated finite-difference reservoir model (FDM). The coupled FDSM is 8 times faster than FDM on an average when estimating properties of heterogeneous reservoirs using inversion on formation-tester measurements acquired in highly deviated wells. Computational advantage of FDSM is due to application of one-dimensional solutions of fluid saturations and concentrations along streamlines instead of three-dimensional FDM numerical calculations. Despite the efficiency, history matching of measurements indicates up to 6% difference between FDSM and FDM in results. In high-angle wells, mud-filtrate invasion causes a non-symmetric distribution of invading fluid around the wellbore perimeter. Moreover, presence of large permeability–porosity contrast among layers increases complexity of numerical computations and uncertainty. This study proposes that the streamline-based inversion method is an excellent candidate to overcome these difficulties efficiently.

Streamline-based method for intra-day solar forecasting through remote sensing

This work presents an enhanced deterministic solar irradiance forecasting approach that relies on satellite images and ground measurements as inputs. The proposed method is based on a ground-truth improved satellite-to-irradiance model for the prediction of global horizontal irradiance (GHI). This approach relies on cloud tracking and advection with an optical flow algorithm. The application of the optical flow algorithm between two consecutive satellite image frames allows for the calculation of a vector field covering each pixel in the satellite image. This cloud motion vector (CMV) field determines the streamline passing through the location of interest. The estimated cloud advection along the quasi-steady streamline to the location of interest is than computed, and this information is translated into an irradiance forecast for the location of interest. In order to reduce the error associated with a linear satellite-to-irradiance model, a novel approach employing ground measurements is proposed. Additionally, decision heuristics are identified and implemented to issue a forecast based on CMV or persistence, depending on the current sky conditions. The overall method is tested for over 110days of operational 1-, 2- and 3-h ahead GHI forecasts, implemented and evaluated for San Diego, California. The continual forecasting skill of this method for the 110days ranges between 8% and 19% over persistence, depending on the forecast horizon. While previously proposed methods achieve similar skills, the completely deterministic approach combined with comparably low computation and implementation costs makes the proposed method suitable for applications with limited availability of data.

Numerical simulations of solute transport in highly heterogeneous formations: A comparison of alternative numerical schemes

We compare the accuracy of five numerical schemes in modeling transport of nonreactive and reactive solutes in porous formations with heterogeneity increasing from low (σY2=0.2) to very high (σY2=10). Two schemes, the Total Variation Diminishing (TVD) and the Eulerian–Lagrangian Method of Characteristics (MOC), are available in widely used packages. The other three schemes are the Random Walk Particle Tracking (RWPT), the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) and a Streamline-Based (SB-FV) method, which we modified to improve its accuracy. The advective nature of the transport problem renders the numerical solution very challenging with the solutions provided by classic Eulerian methods that are plagued by numerical diffusion and spurious oscillations. Our analysis shows that TVD is severely affected by numerical diffusion, while the modified SB-FV method shows the tendency to underestimate dilution to an extent that increases with σY2. In addition, we show that MOC is not mass-conservative, SPH is computationally demanding and cannot handle anisotropic dispersion, while RWPT develops spurious concentration fluctuations, which can be attenuated by increasing the number of particles at the expenses of an increase of the CPU time. Moreover, we investigate the effect of uniform and non-uniform local dispersion models on the overall plume dilution. These results help to consciously choose the numerical scheme according to investigation’s objectives and heterogeneity degree.

Technology Focus: Well Testing (February 2012)

Technology Focus The value of information has a ubiquitous and sometimes pervasive role in modern well testing. From exploration to field management to surveillance, well-test practitioners deal with a wide array of measurements (e.g., pressure, flow rates, temperature, and fluid analysis) that, more often than not, encompass large amounts of data. This is particularly true for long-term-production-data analysis of established fields, and one can argue the same for any current pressure-transient analysis that also has benefited from improved and more-robust data-acquisition available today. Likewise, dynamic information through downhole testing equipment can be acquired in real time—wirelessly and at sampling frequencies that were not possible only a decade ago. Yet what seems to be a relative abundance of data often is challenged by the complex environments in which we operate and by our need to assess its value against associated costs and business risks. One way to look at this is under the premise that, while “perfect” information is beneficial to have, it also is costly to acquire and economically inefficient. Is there a unique answer in our choice of type curves, material balance, or specialized graphs? Should we account for multiphase flow or rock compaction? More importantly, what is the value of the next-best substitute for the information we require? And can this substitute information still allow us to meet our testing objectives? Herein lies the delicate balance between our choices of risk and uncertainty, which brings us to the message of this feature: We should not look for data-rich, but information-rich, content that meets our testing needs. The papers selected for this feature describe exciting advances and opportunities in well testing. They also show that the proper use of advanced techniques can lead to maximizing the value of the information at hand, even in hostile and unconventional situations. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 143592 Assessment of Rate-Dependent Skin Factors in Gas-Condensate and Volatile-Oil Wells by A.C. Gringarten, SPE, Imperial College London, et al. SPE 146450 3D Multiphase Streamline-Based Method for Interpretation of Formation-Tester Measurements Acquired in Vertical and Deviated Wells by Hamid Hadibeik, SPE, University of Texas at Austin, et al. SPE 142818 Application of IFOT in Tight Gas as a Reservoir-Surveillance Technique by E. Pinto, BP plc, et al.

A multidimensional streamline-based method to simulate reactive solute transport in heterogeneous porous media

We present a new streamline-based numerical method for simulating reactive solute transport in porous media. The key innovation of the method is that both longitudinal and transverse dispersion are incorporated accurately without numerical dispersion. Dispersion is approximated in a flow-oriented grid using a combination of a one-dimensional finite difference scheme and a meshless approximation. In contrast to previous hybrid alternatives to incorporate dispersion in streamline-based simulations, the proposed scheme does not require a grid and, hence, it does not introduce numerical dispersion. In addition, the proposed scheme eliminates numerical oscillations and negative concentration values even when the dispersion tensor includes the off-diagonal coefficients and the flow field is non-uniform. We demonstrate that for a set of two- and three-dimensional benchmark problems, the new proposed streamline-based formulation compares favorably to two state of the art finite volume and hybrid Eulerian–Lagrangian solvers.