Transport in Porous Media, Vol.93, No.1, 203-221, 2012
A Study of the Behavior of Implicit Pressure Explicit Saturation (IMPES) Schedules for Two-phase Flow in Dynamic Pore Network Models
We focus on the numerical difficulties that typify implicit pressure explicit saturation (IMPES) schedules in dynamic "ball-and-stick" pore network models for two-phase flow. We show that a time stepping procedure based on a prescribed maximum variation of the local capillary pressure rather than on a (usual) maximum variation of the local saturation along with the addition in the solution algorithm of suitable "flow constraints" (in Koplik and Lasseter, Soc. Pet. Eng. J. 25(1):89-100, 1985) provide more stability and a significant run time speed up. In particular, the slow convergence and the oscillatory behavior that typify IMPES schemes at low Ca values due to capillary pinning are efficiently suppressed.
Keywords:Free imbibition;Capillary rise;Viscous forces;Bubble trapping;Convergence speed up;Oscillatory behavior