Abstract

Hydrocarbon production, CO2 storage, and underground water management rely on a deep understanding of fluid flow within porous media. Numerical models offer a powerful tool to investigate these flows at various scales, ranging from the macroscopic Darcy scale to the microscopic pore scale. While Darcy-scale simulations are efficient for large, homogeneous domains, pore-scale models provide detailed insights into the influence of pore structure, composition, and connectivity on flow behavior. Advancements in imaging and computational techniques enable high-resolution characterization of pore structures. This allows direct pore-scale simulations, capturing richer flow details compared to Darcy-scale models. Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is a versatile particle method with strong physical and mathematical foundations. SPH allows particles to be treated as both interpolation points and real fluid particles, and has seen applications in graphics, astronomy, and fluid dynamics. Compared to traditional pore-scale models, SPH holds significant potential for simulating fluid flow at the pore scale. This thesis focuses on developing an energy-stable SPH method for simulating fluid flow This method aims to address complex pore structures, requiring robust boundary conditions or fluid-solid coupling. The inherent energy stability translates to numerical stability, enabling the use of larger time steps (reducing computational cost) and long-term simulations (allowing for studying more complex flow phenomena). By employing this method, we can tackle some of the most challenging and computationally demanding problems in fluid flow through porous media, including multiphase systems and complex boundary conditions.

Zoom Link: https://kaust.zoom.us/j/5362443454