Comparison of Numerical Formulations for Two-phase Flow in Porous Media

Numerical approximation based on different forms of the governing partial differential equation can lead to significantly different results for two-phase flow in porous media. Selecting the proper primary variables is a critical step in efficiently modeling the highly nonlinear problem of multiphase subsurface flow. A comparison of various forms of numerical approximations for two-phase flow equations is performed in this work. Three forms of equations including the pressure-based, mixed pressure–saturation and modified pressure–saturation are examined. Each of these three highly nonlinear formulations is approximated using finite difference method and is linearized using both Picard and Newton–Raphson linearization approaches. Model simulations for several test cases demonstrate that pressure based form provides better results compared to the pressure–saturation approach in terms of CPU_time and the number of iterations. The modification of pressure–saturation approach improves accuracy of the results. Also it is shown that the Newton–Raphson linearization approach performed better in comparison to the Picard iteration linearization approach with the exception for in the pressure–saturation form.