Developing the R&D 100 award-winning lattice Boltzmann permeameter toward a marketable product

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory-Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Computational models of oil, gas, and water flow through porous reservoir rock are used in reservoir management to decide whether or not, and how, to develop and produce hydrocarbon reserves. The flow models have major impact on these decisions so their accuracy, cost, and speed is paramount. The accuracy of the flow models is strongly dependent on the accuracy of the physical characterization of the reservoir rock`s pore-fluid system. System characterization is typically done in the laboratory. As an alternative, we have developed a numerical approach for determining the constitutive information. The project sought to use computational techniques that could incorporate all of the basic physical processes that influence fluid movement through the porous rock yet remain computationally efficient. The lattice Boltzmann (LB) numerical technique fits these requirements, and is able to incorporate complex pore geometries exactly and reproduce behavior of multiple fluids. The flexibility of the LB approach allows the numerical model, called the lattice Boltzmann Permeameter (LBP), to determine constitutive relationships (i.e., relative permeabilities) over a much wider range of conditions than can be achieved in a laboratory. Our project was directed toward improving the LBP to make it available to a wide range of users. Improvements were made in computational speed and efficiency, user interfaces, and visualization capabilities