An assessment of interface spaces for the accurate simulation of two-phase flows in high-contrast formations

Resumo

The design of accurate multiscale methods for the simulation of multiphase flows in channelized,

high-contrast porous media remains as an important challenge in typical problems posed by the energy and envi-
ronmental sectors. The Multiscale Robin Coupled Method (MRCM) [1] is a recently proposed multiscale domain

decomposition method, that is a generalization of the Multiscale Mixed Method (MuMM) [2]. Such method en-
sures weak continuity of both normal fluxes and pressure for local problems with Robin boundary conditions,

through low-dimensional interface spaces defined over the skeleton of a domain decomposition. The accuracy
of the MRCM depends on the choice of the functions that span these interface spaces as well as on a Robin

condition parameter. In this study we compare the accuracy of the MRCM in two-phase flow simulations with in-
terface spaces spanned by: (i) piecewise polynomial functions; (ii) informed functions [3]; and (iii) physics-based

functions [4]. We investigate the effect of such choices in approximating the saturation fields as well as the oil

production curves for high-contrast channelized permeability fields. Numerical experiments indicate that the spe-
cialized interface spaces (ii) and (iii) have the potential to produce more accurate results by better accommodating

the channelized features in comparison with standard polynomial functions.