A separate phase drag model and a surrogate approximation for simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Fluid Dynamics and Solid Mechanics Group
- BP America, Houston, TX (United States). Heavy Oil Flagship
General ensemble phase averaged equations for multiphase flows have been specialized for the simulation of the steam assisted gravity drainage (SAGD) process. In the average momentum equation, fluid-solid and fluid-fluid viscous interactions are represented by separate force terms. This equation has a form similar to that of Darcy’s law for multiphase flow but augmented by the fluid-fluid viscous forces. Models for these fluid-fluid interactions are suggested and implemented into the numerical code CartaBlanca. Numerical results indicate that the model captures the main features of the multiphase flow in the SAGD process, but the detailed features, such as plumes are missed. We find that viscous coupling among the fluid phases is important. Advection time scales for the different fluids differ by several orders of magnitude because of vast viscosity differences. Numerically resolving all of these time scales is time consuming. To address this problem, we introduce a steam surrogate approximation to increase the steam advection time scale, while keeping the mass and energy fluxes well approximated. This approximation leads to about a 40-fold speed-up in execution speed of the numerical calculations at the cost of a few percent error in the relevant quantities.
- Research Organization:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC52-06NA25396
- OSTI ID:
- 1221768
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-14-28283
- Journal Information:
- SPE Journal, Vol. 40, Issue 35; ISSN 1086-055X
- Publisher:
- Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)Copyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Web of Science
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