ANZIAM J. 44(E) ppC180--C201, 2003.

Combining finite volume and finite element methods to simulate fluid flow in geologic media

Sebastian Geiger

Stephen Roberts

Stephan K. Matth\unhbox \voidb@x \bgroup \let \unhbox \voidb@x \setbox \@tempboxa \hbox {a\global \mathchardef \accent@spacefactor \spacefactor }\accent 127 a\egroup \spacefactor \accent@spacefactor i

Christopher Zoppou

(Received 1 June 2001; revised 23rd October 2002)

Abstract

The permeability, porosity, and fluid velocities that govern the flow of multi-phase fluids such as water, oil and steam in the earth's subsurface often vary over several orders of magnitude and the scales of interest vary from centimetres to kilometres. We describe a node-centred finite volume method coupled with a finite element method on an unstructured triangular grid to accurately and efficiently model multi-phase flow in geologic media. This is demonstrated by modelling multi-phase flows in complex geometries and with transport parameters that vary over several orders of magnitude.

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Authors

Sebastian Geiger: Department of Earth Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Sonneggstr. 5, CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland. mailto:geiger@erdw.ethz.ch
Stephen Roberts: Department of Mathematics, Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia. mailto:stephen.roberts@anu.edu.au
Stephan K. Matth\"ai: TH Huxley School of Environment, Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College, RSM Building, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BP, England. mailto:s.matthai@ic.ac.uk
Christopher Zoppou: Geosciences Australia, Urban Geosciences, GPO Box 378, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia. mailto:Christopher.Zoppou@agso.gov.au

Published 1 April 2003. ISSN 1446-8735

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Last Modified: Wed Apr 2 13:35:06 2003