Section: Application Domains

Compositional multiphase Darcy flow in heterogeneous porous media

We study the simulation of compositional multiphase flow in porous media with different types of applications, and we focus in particular on reservoir/bassin modeling, and geological CO2 underground storage. All these simulations are linearized using Newton approach, and at each time step and each Newton step, a linear system needs to be solved, which is the most expensive part of the simulation. This application leads to some of the difficult problems to be solved by iterative methods. This is because the linear systems arising in multiphase porous media flow simulations cumulate many difficulties. These systems are non-symmetric, involve several unknowns of different nature per grid cell, display strong or very strong heterogeneities and anisotropies, and change during the simulation. Many researchers focus on these simulations, and many innovative techniques for solving linear systems have been introduced while studying these simulations, as for example the nested factorization [Appleyard and Cheshire, 1983, SPE Symposium on Reservoir Simulation].