Abstract
Flows of multiple fluid phases are common in many subsurface reservoirs. Numerical simulation of these flows can be challenging and computationally expensive. Dynamic adaptive mesh optimisation and related approaches, such as adaptive grid refinement can increase solution accuracy at reduced computational cost. However, in models or parts of the model domain, where the local Courant number is large, the solution may propagate beyond the region in which the mesh is refined, resulting in reduced solution accuracy, which can never be recovered. A methodology is presented here to modify the mesh within the non-linear solver. The method allows efficient application of dynamic mesh adaptivity techniques even with high Courant numbers. These high Courant numbers may not be desired but a consequence of the heterogeneity of the domain. Therefore, the method presented can be considered as a more robust and accurate version of the standard dynamic mesh adaptivity techniques.
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Acknowledgements
Funding for Salinas from ExxonMobil is gratefully acknowledged. Pavlidis would like to acknowledge the support from: EPSRC “Reactor Core-Structure Relocation Modelling for Severe Nuclear Accident” and Horizon 2020 “In-Vessel Melt Retention”. Xie is supported by EPSRC (‘ Multi-Scale Exploration of Multiphase Physics in Flows’—MEMPHIS). Part funding for Jackson under the TOTAL Chairs programme at Imperial College is also acknowledged. We thank Dr. Melnikova for providing the domain used in Section 4.3. No data was generated in the course of this work. For further information, please contact the corresponding author at (pablo.salinas@imperial.ac.uk), the AMCG Group (www.imperial.ac.uk/earth-science/research/research-groups/amcg/) or the NORMS group (www.imperial.ac.uk/earth-science/research/research-groups/norms) as required.
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Salinas, P., Pavlidis, D., Xie, Z. et al. A robust mesh optimisation method for multiphase porous media flows. Comput Geosci 22, 1389–1401 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-018-9759-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-018-9759-z