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Development of Shale Gas Reservoir Simulator

Summary

The aim of this project is to develop a triple porosity rock model coupled with the transport of gas and liquid phases for a more accurate evaluation of the shale gas recovery.

Supervisor

Associate Professor Luming Shen.

Research location

Civil Engineering

Program type

PHD

Synopsis

When gas is depleted from a shale reservoir, gas pressure in shale matrix will decrease, leading to an increase of effective stress within the matrix; in turn, this will affect the porosity and the intrinsic permeability of matrix. Due to rock deformation, the permeability of the propped hydraulic fractures will also decrease with the decrease of gas pressure. Moreover, the change of gas pressure will induce a change in flow regimes characterised by the Knudsen number, which has a significant impact on the apparent. By taking the gas desorption and diffusion in organic matter, gas flow in partially saturated inorganic matrix and hydraulic fractures, and deformation of matrix into consideration, the project aims to develop a triple porosity rock model coupled with the transport of gas and liquid phases for a more accurate evaluation of the shale gas recovery. The student will formulate the new physical model into a set of partial differential equations (PDEs), and implement them into the commercial PDEs solver COMSOL to finalise a field-scale shale gas simulator.

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Opportunity ID

The opportunity ID for this research opportunity is 2755

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