Non-equilibrium and scale effects in modeling phase behavior of hydrocarbon mixtures

Key words: multicomponent hydrocarbon mixtures, phase behavior, non-equilibrium, compositional simulation, upscaling

Results of phase behavior simulations for hydrocarbon mixtures presented in the paper show that scale effect is to be considered while examining non-equilibrium effects observed in laboratory studies (porous media and free volume), as well as indicated by field data. Although observed phase behavior can be simulated at small scale by means of locally equilibrium models with limited interphase mass transfer, a non-equilibrium model is required at larger scales. A method is developed for computation of coexistent hydrocarbon phases’ compositions in flow simulations with non-equilibrium phase transitions. Owing to same notation of flow equations as in conventional equilibrium models, the method is applicable as an extension to currently available algorithms implemented in compositional simulators. A physically meaningful upscaling method is derived to match locally equilibrium small scale calculations of phase behavior by large scale non-equilibrium simulations.

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