Simulation of two-phase flow in porous media with sharp material discontinuities

Abstract

Geologic boundaries juxtaposing fine- against coarse-grained rock, have a profound impact on multiphase flow, giving rise to a spectrum of non-linear flow behaviors, ranging from capillary filtration, capillary holdup and the formation of transient ’vapour locks’, to spontaneous imbibition. Although these discontinuities tend to be small-scale features, their impact is felt on the large scale where they are challenging to model with regard to both, spatial discretization and dynamic flow simulation. We develop a new numerical scheme to handle jump discontinuities in pressure and saturation, embedding boundaries into a hybrid FE-FVM model of immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. The inte..