Simulation and Upscaling
Stephen Cannon · 2018
This chapter describes the process of designing and building a grid for flow simulations. A large number of upscaling methods for flow models exist, and selection of the best method can be difficult. The term flow-based upscaling is also used as an alternative. For renormalization and the flow-based upscaling methods, the smallest box of geo-model grid cells containing the cell centre-based cells is used. Upscaling of the permeability is especially difficult as the permeability is a non-additive property. For more complex geo-models where it is important to conserve structure from the geo-model into the flow model, flow-based upscaling is recommended. Streamline simulation can be used for testing the validity of an upscaling. Streamlines produced using the geo-model can then be compared with streamlines from the upscaled model, to see if main features of the geo-model have been conserved in the upscaling.