Awez Hanegaonkar

Bio: Awez Hanegaonkar is an academic researcher from Indian Institute of Technology Madras. The author has contributed to research in topics: Geomechanics & Tight gas. The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 2 publications receiving 6 citations.

Coupled Flow and Geomechanics Model for CO 2 Storage in Tight Gas Reservoir

Abstract: The process of injection and withdrawal from tight gas reservoirs is a multiphysics and multicomponent problem. The aim of the present work is to capture the physics associated with the injection of CO2 into tight shales, and assess and mitigate the risks associated with reservoir overpressure. The overpressure caused by CO2 injection usually triggers the onset of formation–deformation, which inadvertently affects the state of the stress in the target geological formations and its surroundings, the monitoring of which is critical to understand the risks in conjunction with CO2 storage. In the present work, a novel fully coupled fully implicit flow and geomechanics simulator is introduced to describe the physics in conjunction with an extended injection phase of CO2. The developed model solves for pressure saturation and porosity and permeability changes considering a multicomponent system while principally focusing on the adsorption and diffusion of CO2 and stress-dependent reservoir deformation employing cell-centred finite volume method. It is envisaged that the injection of CO2, while with the primary purpose of storage, will parallelly enhance the recovery from shale gas due to lateral sweep effects. Based on these mechanisms, for the case study of a tight gas field, the applicability of the simulation model is tested for formations with varied rock and fluid moduli in a 20-year simulation period.

A review on pore-scale modeling and CT scan technique to characterize the trapped carbon dioxide in impermeable reservoir rocks during sequestration

Abstract: Global warming is increasing at a perpetual rate due to the emission of greenhouse gases in recent years. This spectacle has been mainly caused by the increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the environment. It is in need to find a path to reduce the greenhouse gases along with the additional benefit of energy demand in a sustainable way. A favorable long-term way out to mitigate global warming is to inject CO2 into geological formations of oil fields to achieve a goal of a combination of CO2 sequestration and enhanced oil recovery by CO2 flooding. Understanding the mechanism of CO2 sequestration under impermeable rock formation requires the knowledge of the pore-scale modeling concept. This review article provides an overview of pore-scale modeling and micro-CT scan imaging technique for CO2 sequestration including a background of basic concepts related to storage, CO2 enhanced oil recovery, simulators used, and storage estimation. Trapping mechanisms, geological description of the formation for CO2 sequestration, and reactions that have taken place during the trapping in underground formation are also discussed elaborately. Macro-scale and pore-scale modeling are depicted based on the current literature available. This review also presents petrophysical data that comes from the pore network modeling of CO2-brine pore structure for the formation of carbon-containing sandstone reservoirs. A discussion on the challenges of CO2 sequestration and modeling in pore-scale is also furnished to point out the problems and solutions in near future. Finally, the prospect of CO2 sequestration and pore-scale modeling are described for its uncountable value in greenhouse gas reduction from the environment.

Numerical convergence study of iterative coupling for coupled flow and geomechanics

Abstract: In this paper, we consider algorithms for modeling complex processes in porous media that include fluid and structure interactions. Numerous field applications would benefit from a better understanding and integration of porous flow and solid deformation. Important applications in environmental and petroleum engineering include carbon sequestration, surface subsidence, pore collapse, cavity generation, hydraulic fracturing, thermal fracturing, wellbore collapse, sand production, fault activation, and waste disposal, while similar issues arise in biosciences and chemical sciences as well. Here, we consider solving iteratively the coupling of flow and mechanics. We employ mixed finite element method for flow and a continuous Galerkin method for elasticity. For single-phase flow, we demonstrate the convergence and convergence rates for two widely used schemes, the undrained split and the fixed stress split. We discuss the extension of the fixed stress iterative coupling scheme to an equation of state compositional flow model coupled with elasticity and a single-phase poroelasticity model on general hexahedral grids. Computational results are presented.