Mathematical Analysis for Reservoir Models

Nonlinear initial, boundary and initial-boundary value problems for linear parabolic equations (35K60) Degenerate parabolic equations (35K65) Flows in porous media; filtration; seepage (76S05) Multiphase and multicomponent flows (76T99)

Review text

In the first part of the article under review, the authors expose and study initial-boundary value problems to the differential system for the single-phase, miscible displacement of one incompressible fluid by another in a porous medium \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^3\): \[ \begin{aligned} & -\nabla\cdot\{k(x)(\nabla p -\rho g)/\mu (c)\} = q^I - q^P,\\ & \phi (x)\partial_t c-\nabla\cdot (D(u)\nabla c) + u\cdot\nabla c + q^Ic = \widehat c q^I.\end{aligned} \] Here \(\phi\) and \(k\) are the porosity and absolute permeability of the porous medium, \(\mu\) and \(\rho\) are the viscosity and density of fluid mixture, \(g\) denotes the gravitational, downward-pointing, constant vector, \(c\) indicates the concentration of one of the two components, \(p\) is the pressure of the fluid, \(D\) is the diffusion-dispersion coefficient, \(\widehat{c}\) is the injected concentration, \(q^I\) and \(q^P\) represent the sum of injection well source terms and production well sink terms, respectively, and \(u\) is the Darcy velocity of the fluid defined by \[ u=- \frac{k(x)}{\mu(c)} (\nabla p-\rho g). \] The authors state the assumptions on the physical data, define what is meant by a weak solution, and prove that initial-boundary value problems with various boundary conditions for this miscible displacement possess a weak solution under physically reasonable hypotheses on the data. The second part of this article extends the analysis for the single-phase, miscible displacement of one fluid by another to a two-phase flow and transport system. In addition to a strong coupling between flow and transport equations, the whole differential system combines the above difficulties for the displacement problem with those for the flow equations. The flow equations are degenerate, the number of equations is not known a priori at a given place of a porous medium, and the capillary pressure function is generally unbounded. The authors make an initial attempt to analyze both the flow and the transport equations for a two-phase system using the techniques for the single-phase, miscible displacement; a weak solution is obtained as a limit of solutions to discrete time problems.

Recommendations

Cited in

(71)

This page was built for publication: Mathematical Analysis for Reservoir Models

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q4255778)