Computer modeling and simulation of coalbed methane resources

Coal seam gas reservoirs are complex both geologically and in the mechanism of gas production. Understanding these naturally fractured reservoirs for two-phase (gas–water) flow conditions is often limited by a lack of data. This paper illustrates that reservoir simulation is a powerful tool which can be used to determine key data requirements, and how variability in reservoir properties and operating practices affect performance at the field level. The paper presents examples of how reservoir simulation can be used to assess the efficiency of well completions (fracturing or cavitation), identify candidate wells for remedial treatment, examine methane drainage in advance of mining, and assess the impact of errors in measured data on long-term gas production forecasts.     

Interpretation of cosmogenic nuclides in meteorites on the basis of accelerator experiments and physical model calculations

Cosmogenic nuclides in extraterrestrial matter provide a wealth of information on the exposure and collision histories of small objects in space and on the history of the solar and galactic cosmic radiation. The interpretation of the observed abundances of cosmogenic nuclides requires detailed and accurate knowledge of their production rates. Accelerator experiments provide a quantitative basis and the ground truth for modeling cosmogenic nuclide production by measurements of the relevant cross sections and by realistic simulations of the interaction of galactic protons with meteoroids under completely controlled conditions, respectively. We review the establishment of physical model calculations of cosmogenic nuclide production in extraterrestrial matter on the basis of such accelerator experiments and exemplify this approach by presenting new experimental and theoretical results for the cosmogenic nuclide⁴⁴Ti. The model calculations describe all aspects of cosmogenic nuclide production and allow the determination of long-term solar and galactic cosmic ray spectra and a consistent interpretation of cosmogenic nuclides in extraterrestrial matter.     

有机酸对高岭石形成影响的模拟试验研究

利用富里酸、胡敏酸和盐酸与天然矿物－长石、蒙脱石和云母在常温常压下进行反应,探讨矿物溶解及高岭石形成机理。实验表明富里酸对这些矿物具有较大的溶解能力,其原因是由于形成了具有较大溶解度和活动性的有机硅和有机铝复合体。在中性－碱性条件下有利于有机硅复合体的形成,酸性条件下有利于有机铝复合体的形成。在富里酸作用下,蒙脱石和云母分别在４个月和８个月有少量转化成高岭石,说明层状硅酸盐矿物比架状硅酸盐矿物更易     

攀钢石灰石矿H3滑坡研究

四川攀钢石灰石矿曾发生多次大规模滑坡,给矿山生产造成巨大损失。以其中规模较大的Ｈ３滑坡为研究对象,分析探讨该边坡的失稳原因,建立边坡失稳概念模型,并用离散单元法论证该边坡概念模型的合理性。     

A comparison of estimated and calculated effective porosity

 Effective porosity in solute-transport analyses is usually estimated rather than calculated from tracer tests in the field or laboratory. Calculated values of effective porosity in the laboratory on three different textured samples were compared to estimates derived from particle-size distributions and soil–water characteristic curves. The agreement was poor and it seems that no clear relationships exist between effective porosity calculated from laboratory tracer tests and effective porosity estimated from particle-size distributions and soil–water characteristic curves. A field tracer test in a sand-and-gravel aquifer produced a calculated effective porosity of approximately 0.17. By comparison, estimates of effective porosity from textural data, moisture retention, and published values were approximately 50–90% greater than the field calibrated value. Thus, estimation of effective porosity for chemical transport is highly dependent on the chosen transport model and is best obtained by laboratory or field tracer tests. Received, March 1997 · Revised, August 1997 · Accepted, August 1997     

Flow of groundwater with variable density and viscosity, Atikokan Research Area, Canada

 Flow of groundwater with variable density and viscosity was simulated at the Atikokan Research Area (ARA) in northwestern Ontario, Canada. An empirical viscosity–concentration equation was modified to include total-dissolved-solids (TDS) data from the ARA. The resulting equation was used successfully to estimate reasonably accurate viscosity values over the expected range of temperature and concentration, in comparison with experimental values derived for sodium chloride solutions. A three-dimensional finite-element code, MOTIF, developed by Atomic Energy of Canada Limited, was used in the simulations. The inclusion of the effects of depth-increasing temperature and TDS-dependent fluid-density distribution, while maintaining only a temperature-dependent viscosity relationship in a simulation, resulted in a more penetrative flow against expected buoyancy effects (i.e., the physics of the system was not honored). Accounting for concentration in the viscosity equation caused water to be less penetrative and more in accordance with the expected physics of the system. A conclusion is that fluid concentration should be considered simultaneously in calculating the density and viscosity of a fluid during modeling of variable-density flow in areas underlain by fluids with high TDS. Results of simulations suggest that both flow directions and magnitudes should be employed simultaneously during the calibration of a model. Large-scale groundwater movement in the ARA may be analyzed with carefully selected vertical no-flow boundaries. By incorporating the geothermal temperature gradient, groundwater recharge increases by 12%; thus, this gradient plays a significant role in groundwater flow at the ARA. Variability in the fluid concentration at the ARA neither decreases nor increases recharge into the groundwater system. The hypothesis that an isolated continuous regional flow system may exist at depth in the ARA is not supported by these simulations. Received, September 1996 Revised, September 1997, February 1998 Accepted, February 1998     

Some current methods to represent the heterogeneity of natural media in hydrogeology

We have known for a long time that the material properties of the subsurface are highly variable in space. We have learned that this variability is due to the extreme complexity and variation with time of processes responsible for the formation of the earth's crust, from plate tectonics to erosion, sediment transport, and deposition, as well as to mechanical, climatic, and diagenetic effects. As geologists, we learned how to "read" this complex history in the rocks and how to try to extrapolate in space what we have understood. As physicists, we then learned that to study flow processes in such media we must apply the laws of continuum mechanics. As mathematicians using analytical methods, we learned that we must simplify by dividing this complex continuum into a small number of units, such as aquifers and aquitards, and describe their properties by (constant) equivalent values. In recent years, as numerical modelers, we learned that we now have the freedom to "discretize" this complex reality and describe it as an ensemble of small homogeneous boxes of continuous media, each of which can have different properties. How do we use this freedom? Is there a need for it? If the answer is "yes," how can we assign different rock-property values to thousands or even millions of such little boxes in our models, to best represent reality, and include confidence levels for each selected rock property? As a tribute to Professor Eugene S. Simpson, with whom the first author of this paper often discussed these questions, we present an overview of three techniques that focus on one property, the rock permeability. We explain the motivation for describing spatial variability and illustrate how to do so by the geostatistical method, the Boolean method, and the genetic method. We discuss their advantages and disadvantages and indicate their present state of development. This is an active field of research and space is limited, so the review is certain to be incomplete, but we hope that it will encourage the development of new ideas and approaches.     

On the global structure of self-gravitating discs for softened gravity

The effects of gravitational softening on the global structure of self-gravitating discs in centrifugal equilibrium are examined in relation to hydrodynamical/gravitational simulations. The one-parameter spline softening proposed by Hernquist & Katz is used.
It is found that if the characteristic size of a disc, r , is comparable to or less than the gravitational softening length, ε, then the cross-section of the simulated disc is significantly larger than that of a no-softening (Newtonian) disc with the same mass and angular momentum.
We demonstrate, furthermore, that if r ≲ε/2 then the scaling relation r ∝ε^3/4 holds for a given mass and specific angular momentum distribution with mass. Finally, we compare some of the theoretical results obtained in this paper and a previous one with the results of numerical Tree-SPH simulations and find qualitative agreement.     

Lattice dynamical system modelling of molecular clouds

Because a comprehensive microscopic treatment of interstellar molecular clouds is out of reach, an alternative approach is proposed in which most of the crucial ingredients of the problem are considered, but at some 'minimal' level of modelling. This leads to the elaboration of a lattice dynamical system , i.e. a time-dependent, spatially extended, deterministic system of macroscopic cells coupled through radiative transfer. Each cell is characterized by a small set of variables and supports a caricatural chemistry possessing the essential dynamical features of more realistic reaction schemes.   This approach naturally precludes quantitative results, but allows heretofore unavailable insights into some of the basic mechanisms at play. We focus on the response of the transfer process and the chemistry to a frozen 'turbulent' velocity field. It is shown that the system settles generically into a state where the effective coupling between cells is neither local nor global, and for which no single length-scale exists.   The spectral lines reconstructed from the spatiotemporal evolution of our model may, depending on the velocity field, exhibit profiles ranging from Gaussian to bimodal with strong realization effects. In the bimodal case, the model intrinsically displays an energy cascade transport mechanism to the cells that cool most efficiently: the feedback of chemistry on radiative transfer cannot be neglected.   Finally, extensions of this work are discussed and future developments are outlined.     

围压下构造煤的孔隙度和渗透率特征实验研究

利用岩石孔隙度和渗透率测量系统,对不同煤质及不同类型构造煤的孔隙度和渗透率进行测试,结果表明,随围压增加构造煤的孔隙度和渗透率降低;不同煤质和不同类型构造煤有不同的变化规律,并进一步探讨了煤的结构,气体压力,气体成分等因素的作用机理。