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Numerical modeling of temperature and species distributions in hydrocarbon reservoirs
Author(s) -
Bolton Edward W.,
Firoozabadi Abbas
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: solid earth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.983
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 2169-9356
pISSN - 2169-9313
DOI - 10.1002/2013jb010043
Subject(s) - porous medium , thermal , convection , mechanics , permeability (electromagnetism) , geology , porosity , hydrocarbon , context (archaeology) , thermodynamics , chemistry , physics , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , paleontology , biochemistry , membrane
We examine bulk fluid motion and diffusion of multicomponent hydrocarbon species in porous media in the context of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, with particular focus on the phenomenology induced by horizontal thermal gradients at the upper and lower horizontal boundaries. The problem is formulated with respect to the barycentric (mass‐averaged) frame of reference. Thermally induced convection, with fully time‐dependent temperature distributions, can lead to nearly constant hydrocarbon composition, with minor unmixing due to thermal gradients near the horizontal boundaries. Alternately, the composition can be vertically segregated due to gravitational effects. Independent and essentially steady solutions have been found to depend on how the compositions are initialized in space and may have implications for reservoir history. We also examine injection (to represent filling) and extraction (to represent leakage) of hydrocarbons at independent points and find a large distortion of the gas‐oil contact for low permeability.