Three-Dimensional Parallel Finite Element Simulation of Natural Gas Flow in a Porous Media.

A parallel-three-dimensional finite element simulation of natural gas flow in a porous media was developed for use in multiple well reservoirs. Developed with this simulation was a set of graphical applications to provide a geometric description of the reservoir, viewing of the generated mesh and viewing of results generated by the simulation. An adaptive mesh scheme for the dynamic refinement and derefinement of the mesh during the solution process is presented. The adaptive mesh scheme utilizes a mesh storage technique designed to reduce the space requirements of the mesh. This adaptive mesh technique was applied to an unstructured mesh. A parallel algorithm for the frontal solution technique was developed and implemented in C++ on small clusters of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0, Linux, and PowerPC workstations using MPI. The increased accuracy of these simulations was verified for the Eugene Island natural gas reservoir, located off the coast of Louisiana. The results for the Eugene Island example are more accurate than results from previous finite difference solutions for the same simulation.

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