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At least 199 records · Page 11

Environmental Analysis

Burns & McDonnell Engineering's environmental control study is assisted by NASA's Computer Software Management and Information Center's programs in environmental analyses. Company is engaged primarily in design of such facilities as electrical utilities, industrial plants, wastewater treatment systems, dams and reservoirs and aviation installations. Company also conducts environmental engineering analyses and advises clients as to the environmental considerations of a particular construction project. Company makes use of many COSMIC computer programs which have allowed substantial savings.

Source record↗

Assessing the geomechanical stability of interbedded hydrate-bearing sediments under gas production by depressurization at NGHP-02 Site 16

Establishing the geomechanical stability of marine sediments in the vicinity of a production well is one of the key design considerations in planning offshore gas production from marine hydrate reservoirs. This work presents an assessment of the sediment stability at India's National Gas Hydrate Program, Expedition 2 (NGHP-02) Site 16 Area B offshore eastern India, for which gas production is to be carried out by depressurization. One important feature of the study is that extensive calibration of constitutive model parameters has been conducted based on laboratory test data from pressured core samples. From analysis perspective, the site is challenging because the hydrate reservoir consists of thin layers of hydrate-bearing sands interbedded with mud. Moreover, depressurization at the depth of a reservoir more than 2750 m below sea surface will lead to a pore pressure drop, and accordingly an effective confining stress increase as high as 25 MPa. In dealing with thin interbedded hydrate-bearing strata, meshing requirements for flow and geomechanical analysis are quite different from those for reservoirs with thicker massive layers, An axisymmetric model and one-way coupling simulations were thus adopted for this study, in which the geomechanical study utilizes pore pressure and hydrate saturation output from the flow study, but the flow study does not takes the porosity changes from the geomechanical analysis. Instead, the reduction of porosity due to sediment deformation in the flow study is based on a pressure-dependent pore compressibility relationship derived from geomechanical modeling. The rationality is validated through back computing the pore compressibility from the geomechanical deformation results. Finally, the study shows that large compression in the reservoir will result in movement of the sediments from above and below, as well as laterally in smaller magnitudes; and the sediment is deemed stable during the gas production period.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

An exploration of pressure dynamics using differential equations defined on a fractal geometry

Pressure tests have been used to understand the behavior of naturally fractured reservoirs (NFRs) by establishing parameters such as permeability, connectivity of fractures, system compressibility, fracture network parameters, and others associated with the physical properties of the reservoir. The complex fracture network of a NFR produces anomalous fluid flow, which is shown by the pressure behavior at the well. A plausible model to explain this behavior is to assume that it arises from a fractal fracture system. However, to estimate the parameters that define this fractal fracture system, fluid flow models based on the modification of Darcy’s law are used. On the other hand, in this work, a fractal structure with known fractal dimension: Sierpinski gasket (SG) is proposed. The objective of this work is to solve numerically the diffusion equation on SG, and establish a comparison with flow models used in the oil industry to investigate the fractality assumption. This study is focused on the qualitative behavior of the solution of the diffusion equation defined on a SG supported by the Kigami’s theory of differential equations on fractals.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Dynamics of Gas Flow and Hydrate Formation within the Hydrate Stability Zone

Methane hydrate comprises a significant piece of the global carbon cycle and is an important potential energy resource. Thick marine sands around the world contain free gas beneath and high concentrations of methane hydrate far above the base of the hydrate stability zone. The mechanisms controlling gas transport and hydrate formation within the region where hydrate is stable remains an important research question. I developed a new experimental method to investigate the fundamental behaviors associated with hydrate formation during gas flow into the hydrate stability zone. First, I performed a set of experiments at the same experimental conditions, to determine the repeatability of this behavior. I compared these results to those from an experiment performed outside the hydrate stability zone to elucidate the change in intrinsic gas flow behavior due to hydrate formation. Second, I performed additional experiments at a range of flow rates as well as several shut-in experiments, where I observed long-term hydrate formation after flow took place. I analyzed the bulk and core-scale behaviors of these experiments using a combination of mass balance and computed-tomography analyses. I found that many of my experimentally observed behaviors are not accurately described by previous models and that the mechanism for gas transport was fundamentally different than typically assumed. I proposed that hydrate formation at the gas-brine interface separates the gas and brine phases and limits hydrate formation to methane transport through the hydrate. This behavior produced temporary flow blockages that were mitigated when the hydrate skin fails due to pressure gradients across the sample. This behavior also produced different thermodynamics states on either side of the hydrate that could persist for hundreds to thousands of years. These results provide an alternative mechanism for gas transport and hydrate formation through the hydrate stability zone that does not require the gas, hydrate, and brine to be at three-phase equilibrium. This mechanism provides a first-order connection between experimentally observed micro-scale phenomena and field-scale gas transport and hydrate formation behaviors in these reservoirs.

03 NATURAL GAS↗

Risk Factor Analysis in Low-Temperature Geothermal Play Fairway Analysis for the Appalachian Basin (GPFA-AB)

This submission contains information used to compute the risk factors for the GPFA-AB project. The risk factors are natural reservoir quality, thermal resource quality, potential for induced seismicity, and utilization. The methods used to combine the risk factors included taking the product, sum, and minimum of the four risk factors. The files are divided into images, rasters, shapefiles, and supporting information. The image files show what the raster and shapefiles should look like. The raster files contain the input risk factors, calculation of the scaled risk factors, and calculation of the combined risk factors. The shapefiles include definition of the fairways, definition of the US Census Places, the center of the raster cells, and locations of industries. Supporting information contains details of the calculations or processing used in generating the files. An image of the raster will have the same name except *.png as the file ending instead of *.tif. Images with 'fairways' or 'industries' added to the name are composed of a raster with the relevant shapefile added. The file About_GPFA-AB_Phase1RiskAnalysisTask5DataUpload.pdf contains information the citation, special use considerations, authorship, etc. ***See 'GPFA-AB.zip' at bottom for compressed and organized version of the files associated with this submission*** **More details (including location) on each file are given in the spreadsheet 'list_of_contents.csv' in the folder 'SupportingInfo'** Code used to calculate values is available: https://github.com/calvinwhealton/geothermal_pfa under the folder 'combining_metrics' - *See link below*

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Machine Learning

Presentation overview: Why Machine Learning?; Why ML-Informed Physics?; Why Physics-Informed ML?; LANL ML strategy related to National & Energy Security; ML-Informed Physics for climate modeling and induced seismicity (LDRD-DR); Physics-Informed ML for blind source separation (LDRD-DR); ML forecasting production from tight rock reservoirs (Chevron)

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Coupled Hydromechanical Modeling and Assessment of Induced Seismicity at FWU: Utilizing Time-Lapse VSP and Microseismic Data

The objective of this work is to utilize integrated geomechanics, field vertical seismic profile (VSP) and microseismic data to characterize the complex subsurface stress conditions at the Farnsworth Unit (FWU). The model is based on a five-spot sector model extracted from a primary geomechanical model. The five-spot well injection pattern is characterized by extensive reservoir characterization data, such well logs, extracted cores and borehole geophone data, to facilitate the detailed examination of stress changes and microseismic event occurrences. The study utilizes field vertical seismic volumes acquired from the injection well 13-10A. The seismic volumes successfully provided snapshots of the behavior of the reservoir at distinct times. The use of VSP and microseismic data provided direct and indirect estimates of the dynamic stress changes occurring in the overburden, reservoir and underburden rock formations. In order to illuminate the stress regions and identify rocks that have undergone inelastic failure, microseismic event occurrences were utilized. Microseismic activity has been detected at the FWU; further study of its locations, timing, and magnitude was needed to deduce the nature of the changing stress state. The results of the study revealed that microseismic events were successfully modeled within the Morrow B formation. Moment magnitudes of seismic events were within the same magnitudes for events in the reservoir, suggesting the suitability of the model. The results of the study showed that the computed moment magnitudes for seismic events were insignificant to warrant safety concerns. The study findings showed the usefulness of coupled hydromechanical models in predicting the subsurface stress changes associated with CO 2 injection. The knowledge gained from this study will serve as a guideline for industries planning to undertake underground CO 2 storage, and characterize the subsurface stress changes.

02 PETROLEUM↗

Thermal modeling of the Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility

The Shuttle Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) is a cryogenically cooled telescope in the one-meter aperture class designed for sensing in the infrared from 2-200 microns. This facility is currently planned for multiple missions onboard the Space Shuttle with varying instrument complements. All components of the SIRTF within the field of view of the optics are cryogenically cooled. The baseline primary coolant is supercritical helium which is stored in an external tank and routed through the telescope-cooling the instruments, the optical components and the baffles. For detector cooling below 6 K, small reservoirs of superfluid helium (HeII) are provided. The SIRTF was thermally modeled on the SINDA computer program both for steady state and transient solutions. The analysis shows that the baseline configuration has a large capacity for growth in cryogen requirements. A proportional controller model was developed for transient operations. The control system maintained the optics within all prescribed temperature limits except for certain combinations of transients involving a large step change in the power dissipation in the secondary mirror assembly and/or when the primary mirror was assumed to be constructed of quartz. The baseline SIRTF will perform the mission for which it was designed.

Gier, H. L.↗

On the use of adjoints in the inversion of observed quasi-static deformation

An adjoint-based conjugate gradient algorithm provides an efficient means for imaging sources of deformation within the Earth, such as volume stresses associated with fluid flow in aquifers and reservoirs. For time intervals over which the overburden deforms elastically, one can calculate the gradient elements for a single model update using just two numerical simulations. The first is a forward run that is used to compute the residuals associated with the given iteration. The second simulation is to evaluate the application of the adjoint operator to the residuals. In this adjoint calculation, the residual displacements are applied as sources at the measurement locations, driving the deformation in the simulation. The volume stress on the source grid blocks, in response to the residual displacements, provide the gradient components. We apply this technique to satellite-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) line-of-sight displacements that were observed over an oil reservoir in California’s Central Valley. Furthermore, we find that the adjoint-based gradient estimates, requiring 18 CPU seconds, agree with conventional numerical calculations that take over 3700 CPU seconds to compute. Conjugate gradient algorithms utilizing the conventional approach and adjoint-based gradient computations give roughly the same reductions in misfit and similar final estimates of reservoir volume change.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Prospect Analysis and Hydrocarbon Reservoir Volume Estimation in an Exploration Field, Shallow Offshore Depobelt, Western Niger Delta, Nigeria

The daunting challenge in the exploration and production of oil and gas in the face of continual rise in the world’s energy consumption has long been how to economically recover bypassed reserves within existing assets. This research is focused on the analysis of prospects and volumetric estimation of the hydrocarbon reservoirs delineated within an exploratory field using 3D seismic data and suites of wireline logs. The prospectivity of the delineated reservoir was carried out using seismo-structural interpretation and formation evaluation towards the assessment of the prolific hydrocarbon occurrence within the field. The reservoirs have porosity (0.29–0.32) for H1, (0.20–0.31) for H2 and (0.30–0.40) for H3 and the average computed hydrocarbon saturation of (0.31–0.62) for H1, (0.16–0.52) for H2 and (0.64–0.73) for H3, hydrocarbon pore volume (HCPV) of 28,706.95, 33,081.2 and 45,731.49 barrels for H1, H2 and H3, respectively, while the estimated stock tank oil initially-in-place (STOIIP) range (136.8–140.73) MMSTB for H1, (36.77–489.64) MMSTB for H2 and (166.62–308.14) MMSTB for H3. The observed porosity and hydrocarbon saturation for the delineated reservoirs as well as the estimated hydrocarbon pore volume and storage total oil in place indicate that the reservoirs are highly prolific. The study has therefore contributed to the understanding of hydrocarbon resource potential within the study area.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Time-reversal of an unknown quantum state

For decades, researchers have sought to understand how the irreversibility of the surrounding world emerges from the seemingly time-symmetric, fundamental laws of physics. Quantum mechanics conjectured a clue that final irreversibility is set by the measurement procedure and that the time-reversal requires complex conjugation of the wave function, which is overly complex to spontaneously appear in nature. Building on this Landau-Wigner conjecture, it became possible to demonstrate that time-reversal is exponentially improbable in a virgin nature and to design an algorithm artificially reversing a time arrow for a given quantum state on the IBM quantum computer. However, the implemented arrow-of-time reversal embraced only the known states initially disentangled from the thermodynamic reservoir. Here we develop a procedure for reversing the temporal evolution of an arbitrary unknown quantum state. This opens the route for general universal algorithms sending temporal evolution of an arbitrary system backward in time.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Geothermal reservoir simulation

The prediction of long-term geothermal reservoir performance and the environmental impact of exploiting this resource are two important problems associated with the utilization of geothermal energy for power production. Our research effort addresses these problems through numerical simulation. Computer codes based on the solution of partial-differential equations using finite-element techniques are being prepared to simulate multiphase energy transport, energy transport in fractured porous reservoirs, well bore phenomena, and subsidence.

Mercer, J. W., Jr.↗

An embedded 3D fracture modeling approach for simulating fracture-dominated fluid flow and heat transfer in geothermal reservoirs

In this paper, we describe an efficient modeling approach, named embedded discrete fracture method (EDFM), for incorporating arbitrary 3D, discrete fractures, such as hydraulic fractures or faults, into modeling fracture-dominated fluid flow and heat transfer in fractured geothermal reservoirs. This technique allows 3D discrete fractures to be discretized independently from surrounding rock volume and inserted explicitly into a primary fracture/matrix grid, generated without including 3D discrete fractures in prior. An effective computational algorithm is developed to discretize these 3D discrete fractures and construct local connections between 3D fractures and fracture/matrix grid blocks representing the surrounding rock volume. The constructed gridding information on 3D fractures is then added to the primary grid. This embedded fracture modeling approach can be directly implemented into a developed geothermal reservoir simulator via the integral finite difference (IFD) method or with TOUGH2 technology. This embedded fracture modeling approach is very promising and computationally efficient to handle realistic 3D discrete fractures with complicated geometries, connections, and spatial distributions. Compared with other fracture modeling approaches, it avoids cumbersome 3D unstructured, local refining procedures, and increases computational efficiency by simplifying Jacobian matrix size and sparsity, while maintaining enough accuracy. Several numeral simulations are presented to demonstrate the utility and robustness of the proposed technique. Our numerical experiments show that this approach captures all the key patterns about fluid flow and heat transfer dominated by fractures in these cases. Thus, this approach is readily available to the simulation of fractured geothermal reservoirs with both artificial and natural fractures.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

An Embedded 3D Fracture Modeling Approach for Simulating Fracture-Dominated Fluid Flow and Heat Transfer in Geothermal Reservoirs

An efficient modeling approach is described for incorporating arbitrary 3D, discrete fractures, such as hydraulic fractures or faults, into modeling fracture-dominated fluid flow and heat transfer in fractured geothermal reservoirs. This technique allows 3D discrete fractures to be discretized independently from surrounding rock volume and inserted explicitly into a primary fracture/matrix grid, generated without including 3D discrete fractures in prior. An effective computational algorithm is developed to discretize these 3D discrete fractures and construct local connections between 3D fractures and fracture/matrix grid blocks of representing the surrounding rock volume. The constructed gridding information on 3D fractures is then added to the primary grid. This embedded fracture modeling approach can be directly implemented into a developed geothermal reservoir simulator via the integral finite difference (IFD) method or with TOUGH2 technology This embedded fracture modeling approach is very promising and computationally efficient to handle realistic 3D discrete fractures with complicated geometries, connections, and spatial distributions. Compared with other fracture modeling approaches, it avoids cumbersome 3D unstructured, local refining procedures, and increases computational efficiency by simplifying Jacobian matrix size and sparsity, while keeps sufficient accuracy. Several numeral simulations are present to demonstrate the utility and robustness of the proposed technique. Our numerical experiments show that this approach captures all the key patterns about fluid flow and heat transfer dominated by fractures in these cases. Thus, this approach is readily available to simulation of fractured geothermal reservoirs with both artificial and natural fractures.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

Integrated characterization of CO 2 storage reservoirs on the Rock Springs Uplift combining geomechanics, geochemistry, and flow modeling

This project improves understanding of the effects CO 2 injection and storage on geomechanical, petrophysical, and other properties on two potential reservoirs, the Madison Limestone and Weber Sandstone, at the Rock Springs Uplift, southwest Wyoming. Rock physics studies, laboratory experiments, and computer simulations were employed. Two groups of rock samples were prepared, one aged with formation brine and the second aged with CO 2 -saturated formation brine and subsequently used for geomechanical, geochemical, and petrophysical testing. Rock physics studies provided a facies classification to discriminate among different lithologies and to investigate the feasibility of predicting petrophysical properties using seismic inversion. By applying a zone-wise regression relation established in this facies analysis, a 3D reservoir model was developed. It was determined that time-lapse seismic data are not feasible for monitoring CO 2 displacement at the Rock Springs Uplift or to mitigate leakage-risks situations because pressure and fluid saturation have small effects on elastic velocities and synthetic seismograms. The small variations that do occur are due to the low porosity of the sandstone and the high stiffness of the dolomite. In the Madison Limestone, mineral dissolution due to reaction with CO 2 -saturated brine was observed in highly permeable pathways while mineral precipitation happened in intergranular or micropores. Changes in pore size were quantified via Time-Domain Nuclear Magnetic Resonance transverse relaxation time (T 2 ) and diffusion coefficient distributions. As opposed to continuous injection of CO 2 -saturated brine, a subtle increase in porosity after static ‘soaking’ with CO 2 -saturated brine increases permeability due to the heterogeneity of changes in pore and pore throat sizes. Porosity-permeability relationships are fitted using a power-law function that can be adopted to model time-evolved porosity and permeability in a transport-limited CO 2 injection process. The effect of CO 2 -saturated brine on the linear elastic properties of Weber Sandstone and Madison Limestone cannot be generally concluded. Considering horizontal and vertical orientations and different confining pressures, no consistent relationship between stress (or strain) data and reaction with CO 2 -saturated brine was observed in the nonlinear plastic and post-failure regime. The change of elastic constants due to reaction with CO 2 -saturated brine is more significant in Madison Limestone than in Weber Sandstone; however, no consistent trend was observed. Reservoir simulations suggest that injectivity for Weber Sandstone is adversely impacted by low permeability. Changes in confining pressure do not impact injection rate and can be ignored while the effect of changes to pore pressure cannot. The effect of confining pressure and pore pressure on the size of the CO 2 plume in the Madison Limestone is negligible because of higher permeability. Geomechanical and petrophysical properties induced by CO 2 -brine-rock reactions were time-dependent. Simulations considered these time-dependent properties and indicate that injectivity, porosity distribution, pressure distribution and CO 2 saturation were affected.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗

Mathematical Reconstruction of Land Carbon Models From Their Numerical Output: Computing Soil Radiocarbon From C Dynamics

Radiocarbon ( 14 C) is a powerful tracer of the global carbon cycle that is commonly used to assess carbon cycling rates in various Earth system reservoirs and as a benchmark to assess model performance. Therefore, it has been recommended that Earth System Models (ESMs) participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 report predicted radiocarbon values for relevant carbon pools. However, a detailed representation of radiocarbon dynamics may be an impractical burden on model developers. Here, we present an alternative approach to compute radiocarbon values from the numerical output of an ESM that does not explicitly represent these dynamics. The approach requires computed 12 C stocks and fluxes among all carbon pools for a particular simulation of the model. From this output, a time-dependent linear compartmental system is computed with its respective state-transition matrix. Using transient atmospheric 14 C values as inputs, the state-transition matrix is then applied to compute radiocarbon values for each pool, the average value for the entire system, and component fluxes. We demonstrate the approach with ELMv1-ECA, the land component of an ESM model that explicitly represents 12 C, and 14 C in 7 soil pools and 10 vertical layers. Results from our proposed method are highly accurate (relative error <0.01%) compared with the ELMv1-ECA 12 C and 14 C predictions, demonstrating the potential to use this approach in CMIP6 and other model simulations that do not explicitly represent 14 C.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗