Speaker: Shuai Yang

Department of Physics, Texas A&M University

Abstract: The IMplicit Pressure Explicit Saturation (IMPES) method is commonly used for numerical simulation of two-phase flow in porous media, which is currently an active and important research topic in hydrology and petroleum reservoir engineering. However, the explicit treatment of capillary pressure results in the instability of IMPES. We propose a new approach to implicitly treat capillary pressure in the pressure equation. By the approximation of capillary function, we substitute the implicit saturation equation into the pressure equation. We solve the coupled pressure equation implicitly and then update the saturation explicitly.

Date&Time: January 15, 2013 (Tuesday), 15:00–16:00
Location: 606 Conference Room