Finite Element Methods for Enhanced Oil Recovery Simulation

A general, finite element procedure for reservoir simulation is presented. This effort is directed toward improving the numerical behavior of standard upstream, or upwind, finite difference techniques, without significantly increasing the computational costs. Two methods from previous authors' work are modified and developed: upwind finite elements and the Petrov-Galerkin method. These techniques are applied in a one- and two-dimensional, surfactant/ polymer simulator. The paper sets forth the mathematical formulation and several details concerning the implementation. The results indicate that the PetrovGalerkin method does significantly reduce numericaldiffusion errors, while it retains the stability of the first-order, upwind methods. It is also relatively simple to implement. Both the upwind, and PetrovGalerkin, finite element methods demonstrate little sensitivity to grid orientation.