In the past thirty years, the development of compositional reservoir simulators using
various equations of state (EOS) has been addressed in the literature. However, the
development of compositional thermal simulators in conjunction with EOS formulation has
been ignored, in particular. Therefore in this work, a fully implicit, parallel, compositional
EOS-based simulator has been developed. In this model, an equation of state is used for
equilibrium calculations among all phases (oil, gas, and aqueous). Also, the physical
properties are calculated based on an equation of state, hence obviating the need for using
steam tables for calculation of water/steam properties. The governing equations for the
model comprise fugacity equations between the three phases, material balance, pore volume
constraint and energy equations. The governing partial differential equations are solved
using finite difference approximations. In the steam injection process, the solubility of oil in
water-rich phase and the solubility of water in oil phase can be high. This model takes into
account the solubility of water in oil phase and the solubility of hydrocarbon components in water-rich phase, using three-phase flash calculations. This simulator can be used in various thermal flooding processes (i.e. hot water or
steam injections). Since the simulator was implemented for parallel computers, it is capable
of solving large-scale thermal flooding problems. The simulator is successfully validated
using analytical solutions. Also, simulations are carried out to compare this model with
commercial simulators.
The use of an EOS for calculation of various properties for each phase automatically
satisfies the thermodynamic consistency requirements. On the other hand, using the K-value
approach, which is not thermodynamically robust, may lead to results that are
thermodynamically inconsistent. This simulator accurately tracks all components and mass
transfer between phases using an EOS; hence, it will produce thermodynamically consistent
results and project accurate prediction of thermal recovery processes.
Electrical heating model, Joule heating and in-situ thermal desorption methods, and
hot-chemical flooding model have also been implemented in the simulator. In the electrical
heating model, electrical current equation is solved along with other governing equations by
considering electrical heat generation. For implementation of the hot-chemical heating
model, first the effect of temperature on the phase behavior model and other properties of the
chemical flooding model is considered. Next, the material and energy balance and volume
constraints equations are solved with a fully implicit method. The models are validated with
other solutions and different cases are tested with the implemented models. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/6614 |
| Date | 22 October 2009 |
| Creators | Varavei, Abdoljalil |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
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