A ONE-DIMENSIONAL MOVING GRID SOLUTION FOR THE COUPLED NONLINEAR EQUATIONS GOVERNING MULTIPHASE FLOW IN POROUS-MEDIA .1. MODEL DEVELOPMENT

A straightforward moving grid finite element method is developed to solve the one-dimensional coupled system of non-linear partial differential equations (PDEs) governing two- and three-phase flow in porous media. The method combines features from a number of self-adaptive grid techniques. These techniques are the equidistribution, the moving grid finite element and the local grid refinement/coarsening methods. Two equidistribution criteria, based on solution gradient and curvature, are employed and nodal distributions are computed iteratively. Using the developed approach, an intermingle-free nodal distribution is guaranteed. The method involves examination of a single representative gradient to faciliate the application of moving grid algorithms to solve a non-linear coupled set of PDEs and includes a feature to limit mass balance error during nodal redistribution. The finite element part of the developed algorithm is verified against an existing finite difference model. A numerical simulation example involving a single-front two-phase flow problem is presented to illustrate model performance. Additional simulation examples are given in Part 2 of this paper. These examples include single and double moving fronts in two- and three-phase flow systems incorporating source/sink terms. Simulation sensitivity to the moving grid parameters is also explored in Part 2.