Upscaling of Geocellular Models for Reservoir Flow Simulation: A Review of Recent Progress

A variety of approaches for the upscaling of detailed geocellular models for flow simulation are reviewed. Local, extended local, global and quasi global techniques for the calculation of equivalent permeability and transmissibility are discussed. Specialized procedures for permeability upscaling in the vicinity of wells are also described. Flow-based grid generation techniques, in which a curvilinear grid is introduced to resolve the effects of permeability connectivity, are described along with procedures for computing upscaled properties for such grids. Coarse scale simulation results generated using many of these upscaling techniques are presented. These results illustrate the capabilities of existing upscaling procedures and demonstrate the levels of accuracy attainable using the various approaches.