Abstract - Most hydrocarbon reservoirs contain faults, which are highly complex heterogeneous and anisotropic
three-dimensional (3D) volumes of deformed rock. A major technical challenge in full-field flow
simulation is to represent the effects of 3D fault zone structure within the two-dimensional (2D) fault
planar surfaces using the industry standard commercial reservoir flow simulator due to its limited
functionality. Therefore, a new flow-based geometrical upscaling (FBGU) method has been developed
for capturing the effects of 3D fault zone structures in conventional low-resolution upscaled flow
simulation models. Geometrical upscaling (GU) is the process of calculating across-fault and up-fault
transmissibility arising from 3D flow paths through fault zones, and expressing these transmissibilities
as implicit connections in a low-resolution upscaled flow simulation model. The high accuracy of the
method is demonstrated by comparing the flow responses of high-resolution (referred as truth model
in this paper) simulation models in which the 3D fault zone structure is represented explicitly in the grid
geometry, with that of conventional resolution models in which it is upscaled using FBGU method. The
flow results show that the newly developed FBGU method is extremely accurate and geometrically
flexible.
Scientific Reports, 9, 5294.