An open-source toolbox for multiphase flow in porous media

Multiphase flow in porous media provides a wide range of applications: from the environmental understanding (aquifer, site-pollution) to industrial process improvements (oil production, waste management). Modeling of such flows involves specific volume-averaged equations and therefore specific computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools. In this work, we develop a toolbox for modeling multiphase flow in porousmedia with OpenFOAM R , an open-source platform for CFD. The underlying idea of this approach is to provide an easily adaptable tool that can be used in further studies to test newmathematical models or numerical methods. The package provides themost common effective propertiesmodels of the literature (relative permeability, capillary pressure) and specific boundary conditions related to porous media flows. To validate this package, solvers based on the IMplicit Pressure Explicit Saturation (IMPES) method are developed in the toolbox. The numerical validation is performed by comparison with analytical solutions on academic cases. Then, a satisfactory parallel efficiency of the solver is shown on a more complex configuration. Program summary Program title: porousMultiphaseFoam Catalogue identifier: AEUR_v1_0 Program summary URL: http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEUR_v1_0.html Program obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen’s University, Belfast, N. Ireland Licensing provisions: GNU General Public License No. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 36355 No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 1106569 Distribution format: tar.gz Programming language: C++. Computer: Any x86. Operating system: Generic Linux. Classification: 12. External routines: OpenFOAM R © (version 2.0 and superior) Nature of problem: This software solves multiphase flow in porous media. Solution method: The numerical approach is based on the finite-volume method (FVM). Mass conservation equations for each fluid phase are reformulated into a pressure–saturation system. The generalized Darcy’s law is used to compute phase velocities in the porous medium. The pressure–saturation is solved using a segregated method based on the IMPES method. Parallel computing can be performed using the standard domain decomposition method of OpenFOAM R . Running time: The Buckley–Leverett examples provided only take a few seconds to run.