We considerL-scheme and Newton-based solvers for Biot model under large deformation. The mechanical deformation follows the Saint Venant-Kirchoff constitutive law. Furthermore, the fluid compressibility is assumed to be non-linear. A Lagrangian frame of reference is used to keep track of the deformation. We perform an implicit discretization in time (backward Euler) and propose two linearization schemes for solving the non-linear problems appearing within each time step: Newton's method andL-scheme. Each linearization scheme is also presented in a monolithic and a splitting version, extending the undrained split methods to non-linear problems. The convergence of the solvers, here presented, is shown analytically for cases under small deformation and numerically for examples under large deformation. Illustrative numerical examples are presented to confirm the applicability of the schemes, in particular, for large deformation.

In reservoir simulations, the radius of a well is inevitably going to be small compared to the horizontal length scale of the reservoir. For this reason, wells are typically modelled as lower-dimensional sources. In this work, we consider a coupled 1D-3D flow model, in which the well is modelled as a line source in the reservoir domain and endowed with its own 1D flow equation. The flow between well and reservoir can then be modelled in a fully coupled manner by applying a linear filtration law. The line source induces a logarithmic-type singularity in the reservoir pressure that is difficult to resolve numerically. We present here a singularity removal method for the model equations, resulting in a reformulated coupled 1D-3D flow model in which all variables are smooth. The singularity removal is based on a solution splitting of the reservoir pressure, where it is decomposed into two terms: an explicitly given, lower-regularity term capturing the solution singularity and some smooth background pressure. The singularities can then be removed from the system by subtracting them from the governing equations. Finally, the coupled 1D-3D flow equations can be reformulated so they are given in terms of the well pressure and the background reservoir pressure. As these variables are both smooth (i.e. non-singular), the reformulated model has the advantage that it can be approximated using any standard numerical method. The reformulation itself resembles a Peaceman well correction performed at the continuous level.

In this paper, we derive upscaled equations for modeling biofilm growth in porous media. The resulting macroscale mathematical models consider permeable multi-species biofilm including water flow, transport, detachment and reactions. The biofilm is composed of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), water, active bacteria and dead bacteria. The free flow is described by the Stokes and continuity equations, and the water flux inside the biofilm by the Brinkman and continuity equations. The nutrients are transported in the water phase by convection and diffusion. This pore-scale model includes variations in the biofilm composition and size due to reproduction of bacteria, production of EPS, death of bacteria and shear forces. The model includes a water-biofilm interface between the free flow and the biofilm. Homogenization techniques are applied to obtain upscaled models in a thin channel and a tube, by investigating the limit as the ratio of the aperture to the length epsilon of both geometries approaches to zero. As epsilon gets smaller, we obtain that the percentage of biofilm coverage area over time predicted by the pore-scale model approaches the one obtained using the effective equations, which shows a correspondence between both models. The two derived porosity-permeability relations are compared to two empirical relations from the literature. The resulting numerical computations are presented to compare the outcome of the effective (upscaled) models for the two mentioned geometries.

In this work, we consider a mathematical model for describing flow in an unsaturated porous medium containing a fracture. Both the flow in the fracture as well as in the matrix blocks are governed by Richards' equation coupled by natural transmission conditions. Using formal asymptotics, we derive upscaled models as the limit of vanishing epsilon, the ratio of the width and length of the fracture. Our results show that the ratio of porosities and permeabilities in the fracture to matrix determine, to the leading order of approximation, the appropriate effective model. In these models the fracture is a lower dimensional object for which different transversally averaged models are derived depending on the ratio of the porosities and permeabilities of the fracture and respective matrix blocks. We obtain a catalogue of effective models which are validated by numerical computations. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Inc.

In this work, we consider a mathematical model for flow in an unsaturated porous medium containing a fracture. In all subdomains (the fracture and the adjacent matrix blocks) the flow is governed by Richards' equation. The submodels are coupled by physical transmission conditions expressing the continuity of the normal fluxes and of the pressures. We start by analyzing the case of a fracture having a fixed width-length ratio, called epsilon > 0. Then we take the limit epsilon -> 0 and give a rigorous proof for the convergence toward effective models. This is done in different regimes, depending on how the ratio of porosities and permeabilities in the fracture, respectively, in the matrix, scale in terms of epsilon, and leads to a variety of effective models. Numerical simulations confirm the theoretical upscaling results.

We study the transport of inertial particles in water flow in porous media. Our interest lies in understanding the accumulation of particles including the possibility of clogging. We propose that accumulation can be a result of hydrodynamic effects: the tortuous paths of the porous medium generate regions of dominating strain, which favour the accumulation of particles. Numerical simulations show that essentially two accumulation regimes are identified: for low and for high flow velocities. When particles accumulate at the entrance of a pore throat (high-velocity region), a clog is formed. This significantly modifies the flow, as the partial blockage of the pore causes a local redistribution of pressure, which diverts the upstream water flow into neighbouring pores. Moreover, we show that accumulation in high velocity regions occurs in heterogeneous media, but not in homogeneous media, where we refer to homogeneity with respect to the distribution of the pore throat diameters.

Recently, an accurate coupling between subsurface flow and reservoir geomechanics has received more attention in both academia and industry. This stems from the fact that incorporating a geomechanics model into upstream flow simulation is critical for accurately predicting wellbore instabilities and hydraulic fracturing processes. One of the recently introduced iterative coupling algorithms to couple flow with geomechanics is the undrained split iterative coupling algorithm as reported by Kumar et al. (2016) and Mikelic and Wheeler (Comput. Geosci. 17: 455–461 2013). The convergence of this scheme is established in Mikelic and Wheeler (Comput. Geosci. 17:455–461 2013) for the single rate iterative coupling algorithm and in Kumar et al. (2016) for the multirate iterative coupling algorithm, in which the flow takes multiple finer time steps within one coarse mechanics time step. All previously established results study the convergence of the scheme in homogeneous poroelastic media. In this work, following the approach in Almani et al. (2017), we extend these results to the case of heterogeneous poroelastic media, in which each grid cell is associated with its own set of flow and mechanics parameters for both the single rate and multirate schemes. Second, following the approach in Almani et al. (Comput. Geosci. 21:1157–1172 2017), we establish a priori error estimates for the single rate case of the scheme in homogeneous poroelastic media. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first rigorous and complete mathematical analysis of the undrained split iterative coupling scheme in heterogeneous poroelastic media.

In this work, we are interested in efficiently solving the quasi-static, linear Biot model for poroelasticity. We consider the fixed-stress splitting scheme, which is a popular method for iteratively solving Biot’s equations. It is well known that the convergence properties of the method strongly depend on the applied stabilization/tuning parameter. We show theoretically that, in addition to depending on the mechanical properties of the porous medium and the coupling coefficient, they also depend on the fluid flow and spatial discretization properties. The type of analysis presented in this paper is not restricted to a particular spatial discretization, although it is required to be inf-sup stable with respect to the displacement-pressure formulation. Furthermore, we propose a way to optimize this parameter that relies on the mesh independence of the scheme’s optimal stabilization parameter. Illustrative numerical examples show that using the optimized stabilization parameter can significantly reduce the number of iterations.

In this paper, we study the mathematical structure and numerical approximation of elliptic problems posed in a (3D) domain omega when the right-hand side is a (1D) line source ?. The analysis and approximation of such problems is known to be non-standard as the line source causes the solution to be singular. Our main result is a splitting theorem for the solution; we show that the solution admits a split into an explicit, low regularity term capturing the singularity, and a high-regularity correction term w being the solution of a suitable elliptic equation. The splitting theorem states the mathematical structure of the solution; in particular, we find that the solution has anisotropic regularity. More precisely, the solution fails to belong to H-1 in the neighbourhood of ?, but exhibits piecewise H-2-regularity parallel to ?. The splitting theorem can further be used to formulate a numerical method in which the solution is approximated via its correction function w. This recasts the problem as a 3D elliptic problem with a 3D right-hand side belonging to L-2, a problem for which the discretizations and solvers are readily available. Moreover, as w enjoys higher regularity than the full solution, this improves the approximation properties of the numerical method. We consider here the Galerkin finite element method, and show that the singularity subtraction then recovers optimal convergence rates on uniform meshes, i.e., without needing to refine the mesh around each line segment. The numerical method presented in this paper is therefore well-suited for applications involving a large number of line segments. We illustrate this by treating a dataset (consisting of similar to 3000 line segments) describing the vascular system of the brain.

We consider single rate and multirate explicit schemes for the Biot system modeling coupled flow and geomechanics in a poro-elastic medium. These schemes are widely used in practice that follows a sequential procedure in which the flow and mechanics problems are fully decoupled. In such a scheme, the flow problem is solved first with time-lagging the displacement term followed by the mechanics solve. The multirate explicit coupling scheme exploits the different time scales for the mechanics and flow problems by taking multiple finer time steps for flow within one coarse mechanics time step. We provide fully discrete schemes for both the single and multirate approaches that use Backward Euler time discretization and mixed spaces for flow and conformal Galerkin for mechanics. We perform a rigorous stability analysis and derive the conditions on reservoir parameters and the number of finer flow solves to ensure stability for both schemes. Furthermore, we investigate the computational time savings for explicit coupling schemes against iterative coupling schemes.