Efficient Reaction Integration for In Situ Combustion

Morten Rode Kristensen, Margot Gerritsen, Per Grove Thomsen, Michael L. Michelsen, Erling H. Stenby

AbstractIn numerical simulations of the in-situ combustion enhanced oil
recovery process, a major task is the integration of the stiff systems of
differential-algebraic equations describing chemical reactions and phase equilibrium.
It is therefore of great importance to identify suitable integration
methods and to design efficient and robust solvers that are tailored to the
specific application. Using a time-stepping methodology based on operator
splitting we propose the use of implicit one-step methods of the ESDIRK
class for integration of reactions. To facilitate the algorithmic development
we construct a kinetic cell model. The model serves both as a tool for the development
and testing of tailored solvers as well as a testbed for studying the
interactions between chemical kinetics and phase behavior. Through bench-
mark studies the new ESDIRK solvers are shown to improve computational
speed when compared to off-the-shelf stiff ODE solvers.
Fluid phase changes are known to cause convergence problems for the integration
method. We propose an algorithm for detecting and locating phase
changes based on discrete event system theory. Experiments show that the
algorithm improves the robustness of the integration process when near phase
boundaries by significantly reducing the number convergence and error test
failures.
KeywordsEnhance Oil Recovery, In situ Combustion, Sensitivity, Compositional model.
TypeJournal paper [With referee]
JournalTransport in Porous Media
Year2008
PublisherSpringer
Electronic version(s)[pdf]
BibTeX data [bibtex]
IMM Group(s)Computer Science & Engineering