The finite element simulation of formation wireline testing for oil water two phase flow
电缆地层测试器测量的油水两相有限元模型

Under reservoir condition, oil-water two-phase flow in porous rocks is the most common fluid movement pattern. The mathematic model of wireline formation testing under such a condition poses a nonlinear and coupled fields problem with no analytical solution. The finite difference method could not give satisfactory solutions to this problem due to the complex shapes of the interface between sink probe and formation on borehole wall, and the extreme size difference between probe and formation. In this paper, we developed the first finite element model to dynamically simulate the oil-water two phase formation testing, based on our mathematic model for formation testing of oil-water two phase fluid flow in porous media and the finite element theory. With this model, we can find out the distributions of pressure and saturation fields in time and space during the testing, which can provide the foundation on adequate application of wireline formation tester. Theoretical verification and numerical examples of the model are presented.