New Iterative Coupling Between a Reservoir Simulator and a Geomechanics Module

Abstract

Summary Interactions of solid mechanics and fluid flow have been studied by numerous researchers for the past several years. Different methods of coupling such as full and iterative coupling have been used. Nevertheless, the accuracy and the large run time of the coupled solid-mechanics fluid-flow model are outstanding issues that prevent the application of the coupled model in full-field studies. In this work, a novel relationship of porosity as a function of pressure, temperature, and mean total stress is developed for iterative coupling of stress and flow. The new formula not only improves the accuracy of the coupling but also reduces substantially the number of coupling iterations. The latter feature decreases significantly the CPU time. The new approach was implemented in a modular, iteratively coupled system. The rapid convergence provides the equivalent of a fully coupled method that is necessary to investigate complex coupled problems. The main advantage of this type of coupling is that a geomechanics module can be easily coupled with different reservoir simulators. The paper gives some comparisons of results obtained by the new porosity formula with another formulation.