Xinjiang Petroleum Geology ›› 2021, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2): 206-212.doi: 10.7657/XJPG20210212

• RESERVOIR ENGINEERING • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Meshless Method-Based Numerical Simulation of Microbial Flooding

CAO Lin1,2(), XIU Jianlong3(), HUANG Lixin3, HUANG Feng4, XU Yunfeng5, ZHAO Hui5, SHENG Guanglong5   

  1. 1. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
    2. Institute of Porous Flow and Fluid Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Langfang, Hebei 065007, China
    3. Research Institute of Exploration and Development, PetroChina, Beijing 100083, China
    4. Heavy Oil Development Company, Xinjiang Oilfield Company, PetroChina, Karamay, Xinjiang 834000, China
    5. School of Petroleum Engineering, Yangtze University, Wuhan, Hubei 430100, China
  • Received:2020-05-21 Revised:2020-07-01 Online:2021-04-01 Published:2021-04-02
  • Contact: XIU Jianlong E-mail:caolin0110@sina.com;xiujianlong69@petrochina.com.cn

Abstract:

With advantages such as low cost, easy operation and friendly to environment, microbial flooding has become an EOR technology attracting more attention. The mechanism of microbial flooding is relatively complicated. The commonly-used numerical calculation methods such as finite difference and finite element are ineffective and their accuracy is greatly affected by meshing. Based on the weighted least square method, a meshless method was used for numerical simulation of microbial flooding, and the results of the meshless method were compared with those of the traditional finite difference method. The results show that the meshless method can increase the calculating efficiency by 62% while ensuring the same accuracy. In addition, the analysis to the stability of the meshless method indicates that there exist some influences of key parameters, such as density and influence domain of the mesh points and weight function on the simulation result and its accuracy. In a square reservoir area with a side of 100 m long, if a 9×9 uniform points pattern is used, the influence domain is a circle defined on the radius which is 3 times the point spacing, and a GAUSS weight function formula is used, the maximum calculating efficiency can be achieved while ensuring the calculating accuracy by using the meshless method. The numerical simulation of microbial flooding using the meshless method is effective and flexible in analyzing the mechanism of microbial flooding.

Key words: microbial flooding, numerical simulation, meshless method, finite difference method, meshing scheme, weight function, calculating efficiency, accuracy

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