Project Summary
This project will build on previous work to develop and implement an algorithm or methodology to correct the effects of finite grid-blocks on the amount of dissolved CO2. The research team will model the fundamental dissolution process at the pore scale, and will simulate the effect of convective mixing in three-dimensional heterogeneous reservoirs, a highly challenging computational problem, as well as quantify the contribution of geochemical effects. Understanding of these processes will then be incorporated into an improved algorithm for correcting simulation results. The research team will demonstrate how to apply this algorithm or methodology in the commercial simulator used by CTSCo (tNavigator), and evaluate its applicability with comparison to fine-scale simulations of simplified problems.
This will reduce uncertainty in the numerical predictions of subsurface behaviour of injected CO2, particularly the rate of dissolution and the total amount of dissolved CO2, increasing the confidence in predictions of the migration of the CO2 plume. Such reductions in uncertainty are important to the Surat CCS demonstration project, and will be applicable to other geosequestration projects worldwide.
