Date of Award

Fall 2019

Degree Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

School

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Committee Chair

James Lambers

Committee Chair School

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Committee Member 2

Ching-Shyang Chen

Committee Member 2 School

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Committee Member 3

Haiyan Tian

Committee Member 3 School

Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Abstract

When an oil refining company is drilling for oil, much of the oil gets left behind after the first drilling. Enhanced oil recovery techniques can be used to recover more of that oil, but these methods are quite expensive. When a company is deciding if it is worth their time and money to use enhanced oil recovery methods, simulations can be used to model oil flow, showing the behavior and location of the oil. While methods do exist to model this flow, these methods are often very slow and inaccurate due to a large domain and wide variance in coefficients. In this paper we investigate the application of Multi-Point Flux Approximation (MPFA) methods and upscaling (or coarsening) grid techniques to these simulations. Specifically, the O-Method, a working MPFA method, is combined with local upscaling in order to solve for the pressure and flux values, bypassing the need to solve the given permeability field to obtain those values.

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