Pore-Scale Simulation for Fluid Flow in Digital Rocks Based on Decoupled Stokes Equation

authored by: Shaohua You, Qinzhuo Liao, Fei Ling, Gang Lei, Gensheng Li, Shouceng Tian, Mao Sheng, Tianyu Wang, Liang Xue, Xu Liu, Shirish Patil, Xiaoying Zhuang
Abstract: Microscopic flow simulation of digital rock cores plays a crucial role in understanding and predicting fluid behavior in porous media, applicable across a range of energy technologies including carbon sequestration, hydrogen storage, geothermal energy, and fuel cells. Permeability is a key parameter for quantifying fluid flow in porous media. Utilizing the Stokes equation in 3D digital rocks to perform pore-scale simulations can estimate the core’s equivalent permeability, but simulations of digital cores with complex pore structures and a large number of voxels require extremely high computational costs. This study introduces a novel method for microscopic flow simulation in digital rocks, which simplifies the 3D pore-scale simulation into multiple decoupled 2D ones. By this decoupled simulation approach, the expensive simulation based on the Stokes equation is conducted only on 2D domains, and the final 3D simulation of the Darcy equation using the finite difference method (FDM) is very cheap. The proposed method is particularly suitable for isotropic or relatively homogeneous rock samples, enabling accurate estimation of equivalent permeability and reconstruction of fine-scale pressure and velocity fields. It also offers significant advantages in computational efficiency, making large-scale and complex flow simulations feasible.
Organisation(s): Computational Science and Simulation Technology
External Organisation(s): China Univeristy of Petroleum - Beijing
China University of Geosciences
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
Type: Article
Journal: SPE journal
Volume: 30
Pages: 5204-5224
No. of pages: 21
ISSN: 1086-055X
Publication date: 09.2025
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Energy Engineering and Power Technology, Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.2118/228412-PA (Access: Closed)
: Details in the research portal "Research@Leibniz University"

BibTeX

@article{7c08d8a22a4149bcbf6e3da9082b5de8,
title = "Pore-Scale Simulation for Fluid Flow in Digital Rocks Based on Decoupled Stokes Equation",
abstract = "Microscopic flow simulation of digital rock cores plays a crucial role in understanding and predicting fluid behavior in porous media, applicable across a range of energy technologies including carbon sequestration, hydrogen storage, geothermal energy, and fuel cells. Permeability is a key parameter for quantifying fluid flow in porous media. Utilizing the Stokes equation in 3D digital rocks to perform pore-scale simulations can estimate the core{\textquoteright}s equivalent permeability, but simulations of digital cores with complex pore structures and a large number of voxels require extremely high computational costs. This study introduces a novel method for microscopic flow simulation in digital rocks, which simplifies the 3D pore-scale simulation into multiple decoupled 2D ones. By this decoupled simulation approach, the expensive simulation based on the Stokes equation is conducted only on 2D domains, and the final 3D simulation of the Darcy equation using the finite difference method (FDM) is very cheap. The proposed method is particularly suitable for isotropic or relatively homogeneous rock samples, enabling accurate estimation of equivalent permeability and reconstruction of fine-scale pressure and velocity fields. It also offers significant advantages in computational efficiency, making large-scale and complex flow simulations feasible.",
keywords = "artificial intelligence, equation, equation of state, fluid dynamics, geology, modeling & simulation, reservoir geomechanics, reservoir simulation, rock type, sedimentary rock",
author = "Shaohua You and Qinzhuo Liao and Fei Ling and Gang Lei and Gensheng Li and Shouceng Tian and Mao Sheng and Tianyu Wang and Liang Xue and Xu Liu and Shirish Patil and Xiaoying Zhuang",
note = "Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2025 Society of Petroleum Engineers.",
year = "2025",
month = sep,
doi = "10.2118/228412-PA",
language = "English",
volume = "30",
pages = "5204--5224",
journal = "SPE journal",
issn = "1086-055X",
publisher = "Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)",
number = "9",
}

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