THMC coupling analysis at field scale
As shown in Fig. 1, first, a thermo-hydro-chemical (THC) coupling process for multiphase flow in porous media is considered in ECLIPSE (Kuang et al., 2014). The linker program “AEEA Coupler” then reads the information of locations and variables, such as temperature, pore pressure and saturation, from the center point of the simulation grid that is used in ECLIPSE. Based on these data, the AEEA Coupler calculates the values of temperature and pore pressure and populates them for the finite element (FE) meshes that are used in ABAQUS (Li et al., 2002). Then, ABAQUS is run for a thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupling analysis using the updated information, and new porosity, permeability and capillary pressure are obtained and used to update the values in the ECLIPSE simulation grid through the AEEA Coupler. The simulation then moves on to the next step (Fei, 2014).
Fig.1. Schematic diagram of the AEEA Coupler.
The entire thermo-hydro-mechanic-chemical (THMC) coupled processes for multiphase flow is sequentially and explicitly considered between ABAQUS and ECLIPSE through the developed AEEA Coupler (Fei, 2014). The steps of the coupling analysis are illustrated in Fig. 2. First, a THC coupling analysis is conducted between tk and tk + 1 in ECLIPSE, and its results are passed to ABAQUS in tk. Next, a THM coupling analysis is carried out between tk and tk + 1 in ABAQUS, and the results of ABAQUS are passed back to ECLIPSE in tk + 1 to perform the simulation for the next time step.
Fig.2. Time steps and variables update in coupling analyses.
The workflow of the AEEA-coupler is:
Fig.3. Workflow of the AEEA-coupler.
Please cite our relevant papers
- Fei WB, Li Q, Wei XC, Song RR, Jing M, Li XC. Interaction analysis for CO2 geological storage and underground coal mining in Ordos Basin, China. Engineering geology 2015, 196:194-209, doi.
- Li Q, Fei W, Ma J, Jing M, Wei X. Coupled CO2 Sequestration Simulation Using ABAQUS and ECLIPSE. Environmental Geotechnics 2019:1-12, doi.