Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Springer Verlag (Germany) Springer Verlag
Résumé : Direct numerical simulations of flow through two millimeter-scale rock samples of limestone and sandstone are performed using three diverse fluid dynamic simulators. The resulting steady-state velocity fields are compared in terms of the associated empirical probability density functions (PDFs) and key statistics of the velocity fields. The pore space geometry of each sample is imaged at 5.06−μm voxel size resolution using X-ray microtomography. The samples offer contrasting characteristics in terms of total connected porosity (about 0.31 for the limestone and 0.07 for the sandstone) and are typical of several applications in hydrogeology and petroleum engineering. The three-dimensional fluid velocity fields within the explicit pore spaces are simulated using ANSYS® FLUENT® ANSYS Inc. (2009), EULAG Prusa et al. (Comput. Fluids 37, 1193–1207 2008), and SSTOKES Sarkar et al. (2002). These computational approaches are highly disperse in terms of algorithmic complexity, differ in terms of their governing equations, the adopted numerical methodologies, the enforcement of internal no-slip boundary conditions at the fluid-solid interface, and the computational mesh structure. As metrics of comparison to probe in a statistical sense the internal similarities/differences across sample populations of velocities obtained through the computational systems, we consider (i) integral quantities, such as the Darcy flux and (ii) main statistical moments of local velocity distributions including local correlations between velocity fields. Comparison of simulation results indicates that mutually consistent estimates of the state of flow are obtained in the analyzed samples of natural pore spaces despite the considerable differences associated with the three computational approaches. We note that in the higher porosity limestone sample, the structures of the velocity fields obtained using ANSYS FLUENT and EULAG are more alike than either compared against the results obtained using SSTOKES. In the low-porosity sample, the structures of the velocity fields obtained by EULAG and SSTOKES are more similar than either is to the fields obtained using ANSYS FLUENT. With respect to macroscopic quantities, ANSYS FLUENT and SSTOKES provide similar results in terms of the average vertical velocity for both of the complex microscale geometries considered, while EULAG tends to render the largest velocity values. The influence of the pore space structure on fluid velocity field characteristics is also discussed.
ISSN: 1420-0597

hal-01174152
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01174152
DOI : 10.1007/s10596-015-9486-7

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
Numerical programs for simulating flow and reactive transport in porous media is essential for predicting reservoir properties related to CO2 sequestration performance, subsurface storage and risk assessment. In this paper we solve the Navier Stokes' equation using finite difference method, on a simulated porous rock structure, to study the velocity distribution of fluid flowing through it under a constant pressure gradient. A reactive solute carried through the fluid is allowed to interact with the minerals in the rock. This chemical reaction dissolves the mineral which changes the rock structure thus affecting its flow properties. These changes of flow properties are studied with variation in reactive solute concentration and pressure field. The different mechanisms of dissolution responsible for the variation of flow properties for the different parameters is predicted. Before the onset of homogeneous dissolution, variation in porosity follows a power-law behaviour with change in permeability when the latter is scaled by the concentration of the reactive species. The simulation results are compared with available experimental data and found to give a reasonable match.
ISSN: 0022-1694

hal-00757760
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00757760
DOI : 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2012.05.024

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Institute for Scientific Computing and Information
Résumé : International audience
In this paper, we solve a problem describing the mechanical deformations of a porous medium in the presence of a monophasic linear flow or a two phase nonlinear flow with the purpose of modelizing subsidence of hydrocarbon reservoirs. An essential characteristics of this problem is that the mechanical deformation and the flow have different time scales. In petroleum industry, one uses different very efficient simulators for the flow problem and the mechanical deformations, which enables to handle complex models. Therefore it is necessary to be able to combine as efficiently as possible the exploitation of these simulators. We propose two alternative splitting approaches. The first one is the staggered algorithm used by engineers, which amounts to a Gauss-Seidel method in the one phase linear case. The second approach is based upon the preconditioned conjugate gradient method. We use a numerical multi-scale method in both of these algorithms. We compare these two approaches and we show that the preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm is faster and more robust than the staggered algorithm. Applying the preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm therefore seems to compensate for the fact that the inf-sup condition for the mixed discretization method is not satisfied when combining the simulators for the mechanical deformations and for the flow computations.
ISSN: 1705-5105

Droits : http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
hal-01449039
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01449039
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01449039/document
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01449039/file/DHLE.pdf

Éditeur(s) : HAL CCSD Elsevier
Résumé : International audience
Numerical programs for simulating flow and reactive transport in porous media are essential tools for predicting reservoir properties changes triggered by CO2 underground injection. At reservoir scale, meshed models in which equations are solved assuming that constant macroscopic properties can be defined in each cells, are widely used. However, the parameterization of the dissolution-precipitation problem and of the feedback effects of these processes on the flow field is still challenging. The problem arises from the mismatch between the scales at which averaged parameters are defined in the meshed model and the scale at which chemical reactions occur and modify the pore network geometry. In this paper we investigate the links between the dissolution mechanisms that control the porosity changes and the related changes of the reactive surface area and of the permeability. First, the reactive surface area is computed from X-ray microtomography data obtained before and after a set of dissolution experiments of pure calcite rock samples using distinctly different brine-CO2 mixtures characterizing homogeneous to heterogeneous dissolution regimes. The results are used to validate the power law empirical model relating the reactive surface area to porosity proposed by Luquot and Gauze (2009). Second, we investigate the spatial distribution of the effective hydraulic radius and of the tortuosity, two structural parameters that control permeability, in order to explain the different porosity-permeability relationships observed for heterogeneous and homogeneous dissolution regimes. It is shown that the increase of permeability is due to the decrease of the tortuosity for homogeneous dissolution, whereas it is due to the combination of tortuosity decrease and hydraulic radius increase for heterogeneous dissolution. For the intermediate dissolution regime, identified to be the optimal regime for increasing permeability with small changes in porosity, the increase of permeability results from a large increase in the mean effective hydraulic radius of the sample.
ISSN: 0169-7722

hal-00617671
https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00617671
DOI : 10.1016/j.jconhyd.2010.07.004