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Comparison of various formulations of three-phase flow in porous media. (English) Zbl 0880.76089

Summary: We discuss various formulations of the governing equations that describe three-phase (e.g., water, oil, and gas) flow in porous media, including phase, global, and pseudo-global pressure-saturation formulations. It is shown that the global pressure-saturation formulation is the most efficient one from the computational point of view in the case where the three-phase relative permeability and capillary pressure curves satisfy a so-called total differential condition. The pseudo-global formulation is useful when the fractional flow functions of the water and gas phases are close to their respective mean values, and the phase formulation can be applied generally.

MSC:

76T99 Multiphase and multicomponent flows
76S05 Flows in porous media; filtration; seepage
76M10 Finite element methods applied to problems in fluid mechanics
76M20 Finite difference methods applied to problems in fluid mechanics
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References:

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