AN EFFICIENT DATA MAPPING TECHNIQUE FOR SIMULATION COUPLING USING LEAST SQUARES FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

摘要

The coupling of geomechanics to reservoir simulation is essential for many practical situations in the exploitation of hydrocarbons. Such coupling requires cross mapping block-centered data in reservoir model to nodal data in geomechanical finite element model. If different grid geometries and grid densities between two models are used, this data mapping will become considerably challenging. In this invention, an innovative method is proposed to achieve remarkable accuracy of data mapping from reservoir model to the geomechanical model with ease and quite efficiently using least squares finite element method. The achievement of accurate data mapping will enable efficient simulation coupling between reservoir simulation and geomechanical simulation to investigate some engineering problems in the exploitation of hydrocarbons.