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A Cell-Centred CVD-MPFA Finite Volume Method for Two-Phase Fluid Flow Problems with Capillary Heterogeneity and Discontinuity

Raheel Ahmed, Yawei Xie, Michael G. Edwards

Transport in Porous Media

Swansea University Author: Michael G. Edwards

Abstract

A novel finite-volume method is presented for porous media flow simulation that is applicable to discontinuous capillary pressure fields. The method crucially retains the optimal single of freedom per control-volume being developed within the flux-continuous control-volume distributed multi-point fl...

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Published in: Transport in Porous Media
ISSN: 0169-3913 1573-1634
Published: 2018
Online Access: Check full text

URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa45370
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Abstract: A novel finite-volume method is presented for porous media flow simulation that is applicable to discontinuous capillary pressure fields. The method crucially retains the optimal single of freedom per control-volume being developed within the flux-continuous control-volume distributed multi-point flux approximation (CVD-MPFA) framework (Edwards and Rogers in Comput Geosci 02(04):259–290, 1998; Friis et al. in SIAM J Sci Comput 31(02):1192–1220, 2008) . The new methods enable critical subsurface flow processes involving oil and gas trapping to be correctly resolved on structured and unstructured grids. The results demonstrate the ability of the method to resolve flow with oil/gas trapping in the presence of a discontinuous capillary pressure field for diagonal and full-tensor permeability fields. In addition to an upwind approximation for the saturation equation flux, the importance of upwinding on capillary pressure flux via a novel hybrid formulation is demonstrated.
Keywords: Finite volume, CVD-MPFA, Two-phase, Capillary pressure, Heterogeneity, Discontinuity, Threshold pressure
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering