Stability Analysis and Numerical Simulation of Single and Double Diffusive Convection in Porous Media with Applications to Solvent-Aided Thermal Recovery of Bitumen
Abstract
Natural convection in porous media is a phenomenon in which the unstable setting of fluid layers leads to the formation of convective currents and is very important to different aspects of science and engineering including chemo-hydrodynamics, geological storage of CO2, and solvent-aided thermal recovery from bitumen reservoirs.
This thesis analyzes the effect of viscosity variation in single and double diffusive convection using linear stability analysis and nonlinear numerical simulation. Universal scaling relations were developed to predict the onset of convective instabilities and their initial wavelengths. The developed numerical model was validated using a number of benchmark problems. The model results were compared with stability analysis predictions and good agreement was observed. Finally, linear stability analysis was employed to optimize the selection of n-alkane solvents in solvent-aided thermal recovery methods from bitumen reservoirs.
Description
Keywords
Engineering--Petroleum
Citation
Sabet, N. (2016). Stability Analysis and Numerical Simulation of Single and Double Diffusive Convection in Porous Media with Applications to Solvent-Aided Thermal Recovery of Bitumen (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/27860