From Streamline to Pathline: Visualizing Particle Trajectories Under Changing Velocity Fields

Abstract

Summary Monitoring of subsurface fluid motion is critical for optimizing hydrocarbon production and CO2 sequestration. Streamlines are frequently used to visualize fluid flow; however, they provide only an instantaneous snapshot of the velocity field and do not offer an exact representation of fluid movement under varying field conditions. In contrast, pathlines are constructed by tracking individual particles within the fluid, enabling us to trace the movement of these particles as they traverse through changing velocity fields. Pathline is the trajectory that an individual fluid particle follows in the reservoir. It can be thought of as “recording” the path of a fluid element in the flow field for a given time interval. Pathlines are distinct from streamlines which represent a snapshot of the velocity field at a given instant. The direction the path takes is determined by the streamlines at a specific instant. To start with, streamlines are traced based on the grid face fluxes of finite-difference simulation. Streamline tracing continues till the time of flight equals the current time. The endpoints of the current streamlines become the starting points for the next tracing period. Thus, our formulation incorporates changing flow fields, and the process is repeated for each time interval until the end. The proposed injection monitoring method is tested using a 3D field-scale model with complex geologic features to demonstrate its power and utility. The pathlines were compared with streamlines, as well as the water saturation distribution. Three scenarios are tested: a constant well schedule, a changing well schedule with partial shut-in, and a changing well schedule with a whole field cessation. Results indicate that the pathline provides a more accurate swept volume, consistent with saturation distribution. The robustness of our algorithm and implementation is demonstrated with a complex embedded discrete fracture model (EDFM) to visualize flow patterns in discrete facture network. Pathlines display the fluid flow across fractures and are subsequently used to explore the sweep efficiency and the well connectivity.