Simplified Numeric Simulation Approach for CO$_{2,g}$-Water Flow and Trapping at Near-Surface Conditions

Abstract

To simulate CO$_{2,g}$-water flow in tank experiments, subject to viscous, gravitational and capillary forces as well as the dissolution of this gas (CO$_{2,aq}$), we constructed a simple pseudo black-oil model. Simple PVT correlations were used for gas density, viscosity, and solubility as based on experimental studies and equations of state from the literature. These solubility calculations assume instantaneous chemical equilibrium. The applicability of the approach is investigated by modeling the FluidFlower tank experiment (Nordbotten et al., 2022). The simulation captures the expected physical phenomena, including capillary filtration, gravitational segregation, and dissolution fingering. An error in the total mass, due to ignoring solubility variations with pressure remains acceptable as long as the pressure variation in the tank is small.