Coupling of multi-physical processes in the simulation of gas wells

Energy storage is a topic of great interest in recent times owing to the fluctuating energy production mainly from wind and solar energy power plants. Another key aspect is the sustainable reduction of greenhouse gases produced from the non-renewable energy sources. There are different methods like Hydrogen storage, Power-to-Gas method, CO2 storage etc. by which energy could be stored in underground caverns and later utilized as per the energy demand. All these methods require the use of gas wells and their technical integrity has to be assured for economic viability and longevity. Simulation of these gas wells comprising of the gas well tubes, packers, cement, geological formations and the injected gas prove to be critical in determining their performance. The goal of the project is to develop an efficient coupling tool for different solvers used in the simulation of such multi-physical multiphase gas well models. The individual fields will be solved respectively with the help of in-house FEM code TasaFEM (thermo-mechanics), open sources codes like OpenFoam (fluid flow) and DuMux (porous medium flow) in a coupled manner. It is further envisaged to compare the results of the simulations to the experiments to be conducted at the Drilling-Simulator at Celle, Lower-Saxony, Germany and thereby have a comprehensive understanding with the help of theory, simulation and experiments of the gas well operation.