Simulation of Flow in Porous Media

Subsurface flow problems are inherently multiscale in space due to the large variability of material properties and in time due to the coupling of many different physical processes, such as advection, diffusion, reaction and phase exchange. Subsurface flow models still need considerable development. For example, nonequilibrium effects, entrapped air, anomalous dispersion and hysteresis effects can still not be adequately described. Moreover, parameters of the models are diffcult to access and often uncertain. Computational issues in subsurface flows include the treatment of strong heterogeneities and anisotropies in the models, the effcient solution of transport-reaction problems with many species, treatment of multiphase-multicomponent flows and the coupling of subsurface flow models to surface flow models given by shallow water or Stokes equations. With respect to energy and the environment, in particular the modelling and simulation of radioactive waste management and sequestration of CO2 underground have gained high interest in the community in recent years. Both applications provide unique challenges ranging from modelling of clay materials to treating very large scale models with high-performance computing.

This book brings together key numerical mathematicians whose interest is in the analysis and computation of multiscale subsurface flow and practitioners from engineering and industry whose interest is in the applications of these core problems.

Peter Bastian, IWR Heidelberg, Germany;Johannes Kraus, RICAM, Linz, Austria;Robert Scheichl, University of Bath, England, UK;Mary Wheeler, ICES, University of Texas in Austin, USA.

The contributions present the state of the art in modeling, numerical methods and applications by experts in the field. Contributions 1& 5 concentrate on (numerical) upscaling techniques, contributions 2, 4& 6 are concerned with modeling and problem formulation while contribution 3 concentrates on effective solution techniques. There may be 1-2 more contributions.

Contribution 1:

Helge Dahle, Sarah Gasda:

"Reduced models for large-scale CO2 storage"

Contribution 2:

Barbara Wohlmuth, Rainer Helmig:

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Contribution 3:

Marco Discacciati:

Mathematical and numerical methods for coupling surface and porous-media flows

Contribution 4:

Jürgen Fuhrmann:

"Mathematical and numerical modeling of flow, transport and reactions

in porous structures of electrochemical devices."

Contribution 5:

Ben Ganis, Gergina Pencheva, Bin Wang, Mary F. Wheeler, Ivan Yotov:

"Mortar multiscale finite element methods for subsurface modeling"

Contribution 6:

Alain Bourgeat (Lyon), Sylvie Granet (EDF), Farid Smaï ( BRGM)

Compositional Two-Phase Flow in Saturated-Unsaturated Porous Media: Benchmarks for Phase Appearance/Disappearance.