RESERVOIR SIMULATION

DR WAN ROSLI WAN SULAIMAN

PETROLEUM ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

FACULTY OF PETROLEUM AND RENEWABLE ENERGY ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA
81310 UTM SKUDAI
JOHOR DARUL TAKZIM
Tel: 07-5535555
E-mail: [email protected]
 WHAT IS A SIMULATION MODEL

A simulation model shows the main features of a real system in its

behaviour, but is simple enough to make calculations on.

These calculations may be "analytical" or "numerical".

"analytical" => the equations of the model solved using "well known"
equations or functions (x2, sin x, ex etc).

e.g. the growth of a colony of bacteria.

Model says that the rate of increase of N (number of bacteria) with time
(dN/dt) is directly proportional to N itself, then:

(dN/dt) = α. N

α - constant
Q. What is N as a function of time N(t) if we start with a bacterial
colony of size No ?

Analytical solution, N(t) is given by:

N(t) = N0 .e α .t
Solve same problem by Numerical model.

- break the time, t, into discrete timesteps , Δt

- if number of bacteria at t = 0 is No, need to calculate number of
bacteria at time Δt later.
- then use the new value to find the number at time Δt later etc..
- to do systematically => need an Algorithm (a mathematical recipe)
which is easy to follow.
Analytical and numerical solutions of simple one-dimensional,
one-phase flow equations

As an introduction to reservoir simulation, we will review the simplest

one-dimensional flow equations for horizontal flow of one fluid, and look
at analytical and numerical solutions of pressure as function of position
and time.

These equations are derived using the continuity equation, Darcy's

equation, and compressibility definitions for rock and fluid, assuming
constant permeability and viscosity.

They are the simplest equations we can have, which involve transient
fluid flow inside the reservoir.
Linear flow

Consider a simple horizontal slab of porous material, where initially the

pressure everywhere is P0 , and then at time zero, the left side pressure (at x =
0 ) is raised to PL while the right side pressure (at x = L) is kept at PR = P0.

The system is shown below:

Partial differential equation (PDE)

The linear, one dimensional, horizontal, one phase, partial differential flow
equation for a liquid, assuming constant permeability, viscosity and
compressibility is:
Transient vs. steady state flow

The equation above includes time dependency through the right hand side term.

Thus, it can describe transient, or time dependent flow. If the flow reaches a
state where it is no longer time dependent, we denote the flow as steady
state.

The equation then simplifies to:

Transient and steady state pressure distributions are illustrated graphically in
the figure below for a system where initial and right hand pressures are equal.

As can be observed, for some

period of time, depending on
the properties of the system.

The pressure will increase in

all parts of the system
(transient solution), for then to
approach a final distribution
(steady state), described by a
straight line between the two
end pressures.
Analytical solution to the linear PDE

The analytical solution of the transient pressure development in the slab is

then given by:

It may be seen from the solution that as time becomes large, the exponential
term approaches zero, and the solution becomes:

This is, of course, the solution to the steady state equation above.
Radial flow (Well test equation)

An alternative form of the simple one dimensional, horizontal flow equation

for a liquid, is the radial equation that frequently is used for well test
interpretation.

In this case the flow area is proportional to r2, as shown in the following
figure:
The one-dimensional (radial) flow equation in this coordinate system becomes

For an infinite reservoir with P(r →∞) = Pi and well rate q from a well in the
center (at r=rw) the analytical solutions

Where is the exponential integral

A steady state solution does not exist for an infinite system, since the pressure
will continue to decrease as long as we produce from the center.

However, if we use a different set of boundary conditions, so that P(r = rw ) = Pw

and P(r = re ) = Pe , we can solve the steady state form of the equation

by integration twice, so that the steady state solution becomes

Numerical solution

Generally speaking, analytical solutions to reservoir flow equations are only

obtainable after making simplifying assumptions in regard to geometry,
properties and boundary conditions that severely restrict the applicability of
the solution.

For most real reservoir fluid flow problems, such simplifications are not
valid. Hence, we need to solve the equations numerically.
Discretization

In the following we will, as a simple example, solve the linear flow equation
above numerically by using standard finite difference approximations for the
two derivative terms and .

First, the x-coordinate must be subdivided into a number of discrete grid

blocks, and the time coordinate must be divided into discrete time
steps.

Then, the pressure in each block can be solved for numerically for each time
step. For our simple one dimensional, horizontal porous slab, we thus define
the following grid block system with N grid blocks, each of length Δx.
This is called a block-centered grid, and the grid blocks are assigned
indices, i , referring to the mid-point of each block, representing the average
property of the block.
Taylor series approximations

A so-called Taylor series approximation of a function f ( x + h) expressed in

terms of f ( x)and its derivatives f ′ ( x) may be written:

Applying Taylor series to our pressure function, we may write expansions in a

variety of ways in order to obtain approximations to the derivatives in the
linear flow equation.
Approximation of the second order space derivative

At constant time, t, the pressure function may be expanded forward and

backwards:
By adding these two expressions, and solving for the second derivative, we get
the following approximation:

or, by employing the grid index system, and using superscript to indicate time
level:

This is called a central approximation of the second derivative. Here, the rest
of the terms from the Taylor series expansion are collectively denoted
O(Δx2) , thus denoting that they are in order of, or proportional in size to Δx2 .
This error term, sometimes called discretization error, which in this case is of
second order, is neglected in the numerical solution.

The smaller the grid blocks used, the smaller will be the error involved. Any
time level could be used in the expansions above. Thus, we may for instance
write the following approximations at time levels t + Δt and t + Δt/2 :
Approximation of the time derivative

At constant position, x, the pressure function may be expanded in forward

direction in regard to time:

By solving for the first derivative, we get the following approximation:

or, employing the index system:

Here, the error term is proportional to Δt , or of the first order. The error therefore
approaches zero slower in this case than for the second order term above.

This approximation is called a forward approximation. By expanding backwards

in time, we may write:

Solving for the time derivative, we get:

This expression is identical to the expression above. However, this is now a
backward approximation.

Another alternative for a time derivative approximation may be obtained from

forward and backward expansions over an interval of Δt/2 :

By combination, we obtain the following central approximation of the time

derivative, with a second order error term:
Explicit difference equation

First, we will use the approximations above at time level t and substitute them
into the linear flow equation.

The following difference equation is obtained:

For convenience, the error terms are dropped in the equation above, and the
equality sign is replaced by an approximation sign.

It is important to keep in mind, however, that the errors involved in this

numerical form of the flow equation, are proportional to Δt and Δx2 ,
respectively.
Boundary conditions (BC's)

The driving force for flow arises from the BC's. Basically, we have two types of
BC's, the pressure condition (Dirichlet condition), and the flow rate condition
(Neumann condition).

Pressure BC

When pressure boundaries are to be specified, we normally, specify the

pressure at the end faces of the system in question.

Applied to the simple linear system described above, we may have the
following two BC's:

P(x = 0,t > 0) = PL

P(x = L, t > 0) = PR
or, using the index system:

The reason we here use indices i = ½ and N + ½ is that the BC's are applied to
the ends of the first and the last blocks, respectively.

Thus, the BC's cannot directly be substituted into the difference equation.

However, Taylor series may again be used to derive special formulas for the end
blocks. For block 1 we may write:
By combination of the two expressions, we obtain the following approximation of
the second derivative in block 1:

The error term is proportional to Δx . A similar expression may be obtained for

the right hand side:
Flow rate BC

Alternatively, we would specify the flow rate, Q , into or out of an end face of
the system in question, for instance into the left end of the system above.

Making use of the fact that the flow rate may be expressed by Darcy's law, as
follows:

We will again apply Taylor series expansion to block 1, but this time we will
let the derivative of the pressure be the function:
Subtracting the second expression from the first and solving for the second
derivative, we obtain the following approximation for grid block 1:
Now we replace the derivative at the end face by the expression given by the
boundary condition:

The other expression derivative may be replaced by a central formula:

so that the final formula for the second derivative in block 1 for this boundary
condition becomes:
Similarly, a constant rate at the right hand side, QR , would result in the
following expression:

In a real reservoir case, flow rate conditions would normally represent

production or injection rates for wells.

A special case is the no-flow boundary, where Q = 0 . This condition is specified

at all outer limits of the reservoir, between non-communicating layers, and
across sealing faults in the reservoir.
Initial condition (IC)

The initial condition (initial pressures) for our horizontal system may be
specified as:

For non-horizontal systems, hydrostatic pressures are normally computed

based on a reference pressure and fluid densities.
Solution of the difference equation

Having derived the difference equation above, and specified the grid system,
the BC's and the IC, we can solve for pressures.

However, one issue of importance needs to be discussed first. In deriving the

difference approximations, we assigned a time level of t to the terms in the
Taylor series.

Obviously, we could as well assigned a time level of t + Δt with equivalent

generality. Or we could assign a time level of t + Δt/2.

We will discuss these cases below, starting with the explicit formulation. For
convenience, error terms are not included below.
Explicit formulation

This is exactly the case we derived above. By approximation of all the terms
at time t , we obtain a set of difference equation that can be solved explicitly
for average pressures in the grid blocks (i=1,...,N) for each time step, as
follows (below we give the expressions for the case of constant pressure
BC's; if rate conditions are used, the expressions should be modified
accordingly):
Implicit formulation

In this case, all time levels in the approximations are changed to t + Δt , except
for in the time derivative approximation, which now will be of the backward type.
Now we have a set of N equations with N unknowns, which must be solved
simultaneously.

For simplicity, the set of equations may be written on the form:

where

and
This linear set of equations may be solved for average block pressures using for
instance the Gaussian elimination method.
Crank-Nicholson formulation

As mentioned above, we also have the possibility of writing the equation at a

time level between t and t + Δt (Crank-Nicholson's method). For t + Δt/2 , we
may write the difference equation for block i as:

Since the pressures are defined at time levels t and t + Δt , and not at t + Δt/2,
we cannot solve this equation as it is.

Therefore, we rewrite the left side as the average of explicit and implicit
formulations: