A New Method for Solving the Mass and Heat Transfer Process in Steam Flooding

Abstract

Heavy oil is increasingly becoming an important part of future energy strategy. How to effectively simulate the flow process of steam flooding is the key to develop steam flooding. The purpose of this paper is to establish a mathematical model of steam flooding coupled with permeability and thermal field, and then use the meshless weighted least squares method to solve the mathematical model numerically. The effectiveness of this method is verified by establishing a one-dimensional conceptual model of steam flooding reservoir. It is found that the temperature distribution of the whole reservoir is basically the same except for the gas saturation distribution when calculated at 80, 90 and 100% steam dryness. Sensitivity analysis of porosity of the model is carried out in this paper. It is found that porosity has a direct effect on gas saturation and temperature front distribution. The calculated results are consistent with the perception results of objective facts, which verifies the accuracy and stability of the method.