Upscaling reservoir properties is pivotal for reducing uncertainty during parameter estimation and history matching. Further the computational cost is also lowered due to a reduced number of degrees of freedom. Upscaling single-phase flow entails estimating coarse scale, effective permeability from a given fine scale permeability distribution. However, this effective reservoir property calculation as an upscaling method holds true only for a single-phase flow process. Upscaling multiphase flow and reactive transport processes require calculation of effective coefficients which are different from known reservoir properties such as permeability, porosity etc. In this work, we use a two-scale homogenization method to evaluate these process dependent effective coefficients. This method consistently upscales the partial differential equations associated with the flow and transport processes from fine to coarse scale in a mass conservative sense. Thus, the approach is physically accurate and mathematically consistent at both reservoir scales.

This is a collaborative effort with Hans van Duijn (Professor, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands) and Dr. Andro Mikelić (Professor, University of Lyon, France).