Mixed finite element-based fully conservative methods for simulating wormhole propagation

Wormhole propagation during reactive dissolution of carbonates plays a very important role in the product enhancement of oil and gas reservoir. Because of high velocity and nonuniform porosity, the Darcy-Forchheimer model is applicable for this problem instead of conventional Darcy framework. We develop a mixed finite element scheme for numerical simulation of this problem, in which mixed finite element methods are used not only for the Darcy-Forchheimer flow equations but also for the solute transport equation by introducing an auxiliary flux variable to guarantee full mass conservation. In theoretical analysis aspects, based on the cut-off operator of solute concentration, we construct an analytical function to control and handle the change of porosity with time; we treat the auxiliary flux variable as a function of velocity and establish its properties; we employ the coupled analysis approach to deal with the fully coupling relation of multivariables. From this, the stability analysis and a priori error estimates for velocity, pressure, concentration and porosity are established in different norms. Numerical results are also given to verify theoretical analysis and effectiveness of the proposed scheme. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.