Adaptive mesh refinement technique for numerical simulation of SAGD process in fracturepore reservoirs

Key words:  steamassisted gravity drainage  heavy oil  seepage  multiphase flow  adaptive mesh refinement  fracture  dualporosity media

Abstract:

To improve the numerical simulation calculation speed for steam assisted gravity drainage(SAGD) process in fracturepore dualporosity reservoirs, the adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) algorithm as well as the fracturematrix equation decomposition approach under a dualporosity(DK) model was proposed by using different grid sizes in different regions based upon the spatial variations of the temperature and phasesaturations. The numerical results show that the proposed AMR technique dealing with such nonlinear problems with the front is fast and can give good precision compared with the finegrid solution. It is also shown that the steam chamber could reach the top of the reservoir, which is harmful to the thermal efficiency of steam energy for the SAGD process in fracturepore dualporosity reservoirs.