Polyhedral Grid Bounding Box Clipping for Seismic Flow Simulation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for predicting fluid flow in reservoirs are inaccurate and costly, often introducing numerical errors due to difficulties in modeling fault geometry and estimating fluid behavior across discontinuities in seismic data, leading to non-physical behaviors in flow simulations.
Innovation Solution
A polyhedral grid approach is used to represent seismic data, where a polyhedral cell is identified, and a polyhedron is created to remove regions based on its faces, determining a pressure center to improve flow simulation accuracy by mitigating non-physical transmissibilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional grid-based approaches are used to model substrata, then flow simulations can be run, but numerical errors and non-physical behaviors are introduced due to inaccurate fault geometry approximation
Solution Approach 1:
The method segments the continuous fault geometry into discrete polyhedral cells with well-defined faces and vertices. Each polyhedral cell represents a discrete volume element in the grid, allowing accurate representation of complex fault surfaces through planar face approximations. This segmentation enables precise calculation of pressure centers and transmissibilities while maintaining computational efficiency.
2Productivity
If estimations or assumptions are used to fix data for calculation, then calculations can be completed, but numerical errors up to and including non-physical behaviors are introduced
Solution Approach 1:
The polyhedral grid structure is designed to be self-sufficient for flow simulation calculations. Each polyhedral cell inherently contains all necessary geometric information (vertices, faces, normals) to calculate pressure centers and transmissibilities without requiring external estimations or assumptions. The mathematical formulation ensures that calculations are completed using only the explicit geometric data from the seismic survey, eliminating the need for corrective assumptions.
3Reliability
If a polyhedral grid approach is used to represent seismic data, then flow simulation accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases due to polyhedron creation and bounding box clipping operations
Solution Approach 1:
The method transitions from traditional 3D volumetric grid cells to polyhedral cells with arbitrary face orientations. By introducing additional geometric dimensions (non-orthogonal faces, variable vertex positions), the system can accurately represent complex fault geometries that cannot be captured by regular cubic cells. The bounding box clipping technique efficiently manages this increased geometric complexity by providing a simplified computational envelope.
Data Source
AI summary
A method is described in which a polyhedral grid representative of seismic data is provided. A polyhedral cell of the polyhedral grid is identified. A polyhedron that encloses the polyhedral cell is created. A region of the polyhedron to remove based on faces of the identified polyhedral cell is identified. The identified region of the polyhedron is removed. The identifying and removing are repeated for a plurality of faces of the identified polyhedral cell. A pressure center of the polyhedral cell is determined.