Multi-scale Modeling of Compressible Single-phase Flow in Porous Media using Molecular Simulation
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Ahmed Saad MS - Thesis
Type
ThesisAuthors
Saad, Ahmed Mohamed
Advisors
Sun, Shuyu
Committee members
Stenchikov, Georgiy L.
Knio, Omar

Program
Earth Science and EngineeringKAUST Department
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) DivisionDate
2016-05Embargo End Date
2017-05-24Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/610700
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At the time of archiving, the student author of this thesis opted to temporarily restrict access to it. The full text of this thesis became available to the public after the expiration of the embargo on 2017-05-24.Abstract
In this study, an efficient coupling between Monte Carlo (MC) molecular simulation and Darcy-scale flow in porous media is presented. The cell-centered finite difference method with a non-uniform rectangular mesh were used to discretize the simulation domain and solve the governing equations. To speed up the MC simulations, we implemented a recently developed scheme that quickly generates MC Markov chains out of pre-computed ones, based on the reweighting and reconstruction algorithm. This method astonishingly reduces the required computational time by MC simulations from hours to seconds. In addition, the reweighting and reconstruction scheme, which was originally designed to work with the LJ potential model, is extended to work with a potential model that accounts for the molecular quadrupole moment of fluids with non-spherical molecules such as CO2. The potential model was used to simulate the thermodynamic equilibrium properties for single-phase and two-phase systems using the canonical ensemble and the Gibbs ensemble, respectively. Comparing the simulation results with the experimental data showed that the implemented model has an excellent fit outperforming the standard LJ model. To demonstrate the strength of the proposed coupling in terms of computational time efficiency and numerical accuracy in fluid properties, various numerical experiments covering different compressible single-phase flow scenarios were conducted. The novelty in the introduced scheme is in allowing an efficient coupling of the molecular scale and Darcy scale in reservoir simulators. This leads to an accurate description of the thermodynamic behavior of the simulated reservoir fluids; consequently enhancing the confidence in the flow predictions in porous media.Citation
Saad, A. M. (2016). Multi-scale Modeling of Compressible Single-phase Flow in Porous Media using Molecular Simulation. KAUST Research Repository. https://doi.org/10.25781/KAUST-YB1TZae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.25781/KAUST-YB1TZ