TY - JOUR
T1 - Vertically Integrated Dual-porosity and Dual-permeability Models for CO2 Sequestration in Fractured Geological Formation
AU - Guo, Bo
AU - Tao, Yiheng
AU - Bandilla, Karl
AU - Celia, Michael Anthony
N1 - Funding Information:
This material is based upon work supported by the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University and by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) under Grant Number FE0023323. This project is managed and administered by Princeton University and funded by DOE/NETL and cost-sharing partners. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Authors.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Analysis of geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in deep saline aquifers requires computationally efficient mathematical models to predict the pressure evolution and the injected CO2 plume migration. The subsurface system of CO2 injection into saline aquifers can be modeled as a two-phase flow system, with a non-wetting less dense (supercritical) CO2 phase and a denser brine as the wetting phase. For unfractured geological formations, one type of simplified model can be developed by integrating the three-dimensional governing equations in the vertical dimension. The vertically integrated models that assume buoyant segregation and vertical pressure equilibrium are referred to as vertical equilibrium (VE) models. VE models are computationally efficient owing to the dimension reduction from vertical integration, and have been extensively applied to field-scale modeling of CO2 injection, migration, and leakage in the past decade. For fractured geological formations, it is challenging to directly use vertically integrated models, because CO2 migration in fractured formations involves two different characteristic time scales due to significant contrast of permeability between the fractures and matrix. The high permeability of the fractures leads to fast buoyant segregation of CO2 and brine in the vertical direction within the fractures, while lower permeability of the matrix typically leads to much slower flow dynamics that involve longer time scales for segregation. In this paper, we use a dual-continuum approach to conceptualize the fractured geological formation, treating the fractures and the rock matrix blocks as overlapping continua, and develop vertically integrated models for CO2 injection in fractured geological formation. We use a VE model for the fracture domain and explore different model options for the matrix domain, including the classical dual-porosity model that treats the matrix as a source/sink term for the fracture as well as other more advanced models that explicitly account for the two-phase flow dynamics of the CO2 and brine in the matrix domain. We present the modeling framework and show preliminary model comparison results to demonstrate the applicability of the new models.
AB - Analysis of geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) in deep saline aquifers requires computationally efficient mathematical models to predict the pressure evolution and the injected CO2 plume migration. The subsurface system of CO2 injection into saline aquifers can be modeled as a two-phase flow system, with a non-wetting less dense (supercritical) CO2 phase and a denser brine as the wetting phase. For unfractured geological formations, one type of simplified model can be developed by integrating the three-dimensional governing equations in the vertical dimension. The vertically integrated models that assume buoyant segregation and vertical pressure equilibrium are referred to as vertical equilibrium (VE) models. VE models are computationally efficient owing to the dimension reduction from vertical integration, and have been extensively applied to field-scale modeling of CO2 injection, migration, and leakage in the past decade. For fractured geological formations, it is challenging to directly use vertically integrated models, because CO2 migration in fractured formations involves two different characteristic time scales due to significant contrast of permeability between the fractures and matrix. The high permeability of the fractures leads to fast buoyant segregation of CO2 and brine in the vertical direction within the fractures, while lower permeability of the matrix typically leads to much slower flow dynamics that involve longer time scales for segregation. In this paper, we use a dual-continuum approach to conceptualize the fractured geological formation, treating the fractures and the rock matrix blocks as overlapping continua, and develop vertically integrated models for CO2 injection in fractured geological formation. We use a VE model for the fracture domain and explore different model options for the matrix domain, including the classical dual-porosity model that treats the matrix as a source/sink term for the fracture as well as other more advanced models that explicitly account for the two-phase flow dynamics of the CO2 and brine in the matrix domain. We present the modeling framework and show preliminary model comparison results to demonstrate the applicability of the new models.
KW - CO storage
KW - Vertically integrated models
KW - dual-continuum models
KW - fracture flow
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U2 - 10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.1466
DO - 10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.1466
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85029637200
SN - 1876-6102
VL - 114
SP - 3343
EP - 3352
JO - Energy Procedia
JF - Energy Procedia
T2 - 13th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies, GHGT 2016
Y2 - 14 November 2016 through 18 November 2016
ER -