Visualizing Flow Patterns in Coupled Geomechanical Simulation Using Streamlines
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AbstractReservoir geomechanics is a production induced phenomena that is experienced in large number of fields around the world. Hydrocarbon production changes the pore pressure which in turn alters the in-situ stress state. For reservoirs that are either stress sensitive or where rock is soft and unconsolidated, stresses have appreciable effect on rock properties like porosity and permeability. Anisotropic and isotropic permeability changes impact flow direction and movement of flood front thereby influencing well performance and reservoir productivity. Coupling of geomechanical calculations with multi-phase flow simulation is needed to make reliable predictions on reservoir production response and ultimate recovery. In this paper, geomechanical simulation is combined with streamline tracing to aid in better understanding of reservoir dynamics through visualization of flow patterns in the reservoir.Specifically, we generate total velocity streamlines and individual phase streamlines for flow fields derived from coupled geomechanical simulation and compare the results with streamline tracing for conventional reservoir simulator to examine the impact of geomechanics on reservoir flow processes. Commercial finite difference simulators are used for flow simulation with and without geomechanical effects and streamline tracing has been done from flux fields using corner point extension of the Pollock algorithm. Our results show that phase and component streamlines in addition to total velocity streamlines can be a valuable reservoir management tool and can provide unique insights into the flow dynamics as well as reservoir mechanisms. The streamlines capture flow directionality, and also provide information on the appearance and disappearance of individual phases and connectivity between injectors and producers.
