SFB 1313 Publication "A New Fully Implicit Two-Phase Pore-Network Model by Utilizing Regularization Strategies"

New SFB 1313 publication, published in "Transport in Porous Media". The work has been developed within the SFB 1313 research project A02.

"A New Fully Implicit Two-Phase Pore-Network Model by Utilizing Regularization Strategies"

Authors

• Hanchuan Wu (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project A02)
• Maziar Veyskarami (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project A02)
• Martin Schneider (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research projects A02 and INF)
• Rainer Helmig (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research projects A02 and C02)

Abstract

In this paper, we address the expensive computational cost resulting from limited time-step sizes during numerical simulations of two-phase flow in porous media using dynamic pore-network models. To overcome this issue, we propose a numerical method for dynamic pore-network models using a fully implicit approach. The proposed method introduces a regularization strategy considering the historical fluid configuration at the pore throat, which smooths the discontinuities in local conductivity caused by invasion and snap-off events. The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method in terms of accuracy, efficiency and consistency in comparison with other numerical schemes. With similar computational cost, determined by time-step sizes and number of Newton iterations, the developed method in this work yields more accurate results compared to similar schemes presented in the literature. Additionally, our results highlight the enhanced robustness of the our scheme, as it exhibits reduced sensitivity to variations in time-step sizes.