A lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) for flow simulations in highly heterogeneous porous media at both pore and Darcy scales is proposed in the paper. In the pore scale simulations, flow of two phases (e.g., oil and gas) or two immiscible fluids (e.g., water and oil) are modeled using cohesive or repulsive forces, respectively. The relative permeability can be computed using pore-scale simulations and seamlessly applied for intermediate and Darcy-scale simulations. A multiscale LBM that can reduce the computational complexity of existing LBM and transfer the information between different scales is implemented. The results of coarse-grid, reduced-order, simulations agree very well with the averaged results obtained using fine grid.

Keywords:
Fluid Dynamics, lbm algorithm, boundary condition, lattice boltzmann model, Upstream Oil & Gas, repulsive force, pore scale simulation, algorithm, flow in porous media, immiscible fluid
Subjects:
Reservoir Fluid Dynamics, Flow in porous media
Copyright 2013, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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