PyDDC: An Eulerian-Lagrangian simulator for density driven convection of $\mathrm{CO_2}$--brine systems in saturated porous media

TL;DR

PyDDC is a novel Lagrangian-based reservoir simulator for modeling density-driven $ ext{CO}_2$-brine convection in porous media, offering advantages over traditional Eulerian models in flexibility and artifact reduction.

Contribution

It introduces a Lagrangian particle tracking approach for simulating $ ext{CO}_2$-brine convection, incorporating phase equilibrium models and addressing limitations of existing Eulerian methods.

Findings

Demonstrates flexibility in modeling anisotropic dispersion.

Reduces numerical artifacts compared to Eulerian models.

Successfully integrates phase equilibrium in simulations.

Abstract

PyDDC is a particle tracking reservoir simulator capable of solving non-linear density driven convection of single phase carbon-dioxide ($\mathrm{CO_2}$)--brine fluid mixture in saturated porous media at the continuum scale. In contrast to the sate-of-the-art Eulerian models, PyDDC uses a Lagrangian approach to simulate the Fickian transport of single phase solute mixtures. This introduces additional flexibility of incorporating anisotropic dispersion and benefits from having no numerical artifacts in its implementation. It also includes $\mathrm{CO_2}$--brine phase equilibrium models, developed by other researchers, to study the overall dynamics in the presence of electrolyte brine at different pressure and temperatures above the critical point of $\mathrm{CO_2}$. We demonstrate the implementation procedure in depth, outlining the overall structure of the numerical solver and its different attributes that can be used for solving specific tasks.