Abstract
Multiscale heterogeneity and insufficient characterization data for the
specific subsurface formation of interest render predictions of
multi-phase fluid flow in geologic formations highly uncertain.
Quantification of the propagation uncertainty from the geomodel to the
fluid-flow response is typically done within a probabilistic framework.
This task is computationally demanding due to, e.g., the slow
convergence of Monte Carlo simulations (MCS), especially when computing
the tails of a distribution that will be used for risk assessment and
decision-making under uncertainty. The frozen streamlines method (FROST)
accelerates probabilistic predictions of immiscible two-phase fluid flow
problems; however, FROST still relies on MCS to compute the travel-time
distribution, which is then used to perform the transport (phase
saturation) computations. To alleviate this computational bottleneck, we
replace MCS with a deterministic equation for the cumulative
distribution function (CDF) of the travel time. The resulting CDF-FROST
approach yields the CDF of the saturation field without resorting to
sampling-based strategies. Our numerical experiments demonstrate the
high accuracy of CDF-FROST in computing the CDFs of both saturation and
travel time. For the same accuracy, it is about 5 and 10 times faster
than FROST and MCS, respectively.