Asymptotic behavior of two-phase flows in heterogeneous porous media for capillarity depending only on space. I. Convergence to the optimal entropy solution

We consider an immiscible two-phase flow in a heterogeneous one-dimensional porous medium. We suppose particularly that the capillary pressure field is discontinuous with respect to the space variable. The dependence of the capillary pressure with respect to the oil saturation is supposed to be weak, at least for saturations which are not too close to 0 or 1. We study the asymptotic behavior when the capillary pressure tends to a function which does not depend on the saturation. In this paper, we show that if the capillary forces at the spacial discontinuities are oriented in the same direction that the gravity forces, or if the two phases move in the same direction, then the saturation profile with capillary diffusion converges toward the unique optimal entropy solution to the hyperbolic scalar conservation law with discontinuous flux functions

Improving Newton's method performance by parametrization: the case of Richards equation

The nonlinear systems obtained by discretizing degenerate parabolic equations may be hard to solve, especially with Newton's method. In this paper, we apply to Richards equation a strategy that consists in defining a new primary unknown for the continuous equation in order to stabilize Newton's method by parametrizing the graph linking the pressure and the saturation. The resulting form of Richards equation is then discretized thanks to a monotone Finite Volume scheme. We prove the well-posedness of the numerical scheme. Then we show under appropriate non-degeneracy conditions on the parametrization that Newton\^as method converges locally and quadratically. Finally, we provide numerical evidences of the efficiency of our approach

On the time continuity of entropy solutions

We show that any entropy solution $u$ of a convection diffusion equation $\partial_t u + \div F(u)-\Delta\phi(u) =b$ in \OT belongs to C([0,T),L^1_{Loc}(\o\O)). The proof does not use the uniqueness of the solution

Numerical analysis of a robust free energy diminishing Finite Volume scheme for parabolic equations with gradient structure

We present a numerical method for approximating the solutions of degenerate parabolic equations with a formal gradient flow structure. The numerical method we propose preserves at the discrete level the formal gradient flow structure, allowing the use of some nonlinear test functions in the analysis. The existence of a solution to and the convergence of the scheme are proved under very general assumptions on the continuous problem (nonlinearities, anisotropy, heterogeneity) and on the mesh. Moreover, we provide numerical evidences of the efficiency and of the robustness of our approach

Analyse mathématique et numérique d'équations aux dérivées partielles issues de la mécanique des fluides : applications aux écoulements en milieux poreux

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Incompressible immiscible multiphase flows in porous media: a variational approach

We describe the competitive motion of (N + 1) incompressible immiscible phases within a porous medium as the gradient flow of a singular energy in the space of non-negative measures with prescribed mass endowed with some tensorial Wasserstein distance. We show the convergence of the approximation obtained by a minimization schem\`e a la [R. Jordan, D. Kinder-lehrer \& F. Otto, SIAM J. Math. Anal, 29(1):1--17, 1998]. This allow to obtain a new existence result for a physically well-established system of PDEs consisting in the Darcy-Muskat law for each phase, N capillary pressure relations, and a constraint on the volume occupied by the fluid. Our study does not require the introduction of any global or complementary pressure

Finite volume scheme for two-phase flows in heterogeneous porous media involving capillary pressure discontinuities

We study a one dimensional model for two-phase flows in heterogeneous media, in which the capillary pressure functions can be discontinuous with respect to space. We first give a model, leading to a system of degenerated non-linear parabolic equations spatially coupled by non linear transmission conditions. We approximate the solution of our problem thanks to a monotonous finite volume scheme. The convergence of the underlying discrete solution to a weak solution when the discretization step tends to 0 is then proven. We also show, under assumptions on the initial data, a uniform estimate on the flux, which is then used during the uniqueness proof. A density argument allows us to relax the assumptions on the initial data, and to extend the existence-uniqueness frame to a family of solution obtained as limit of approximations. A numerical example is then given to illustrate the behavior of the model

The gradient flow structure for incompressible immiscible two-phase flows in porous media

We show that the widely used model governing the motion of two incompressible immiscible fluids in a possibly heterogeneous porous medium has a formal gradient flow structure. More precisely, the fluid composition is governed by the gradient flow of some non-smooth energy. Starting from this energy together with a dissipation potential, we recover the celebrated Darcy-Muskat law and the capillary pressure law governing the flow thanks to the principle of least action. Our interpretation does not require the introduction of any algebraic transformation like, e.g., the global pressure or the Kirchhoff transform, and can be transposed to the case of more phases