Thermo-hydro-mechanical modelling of fluid geological storage by Godunov-mixed methods

The efficient solution to the coupled system of PDEs governing the mass and the energy balance in deformable porous media requires advanced numerical algorithms. A combination of mixed/Galerkin finite elements and finite volumes along with a staggered method are employed. Fluid flow and heat transfer are addressed iteratively by a fully coupled approach and the medium deformation by an explicitly coupled scheme, at each time step. Such formulation allows for stable numerical solutions, element-wise conservative velocity fields and accurate prediction of sharp temperature convective fronts. The proposed model is experimented with in realistic applications of a deep aquifer fluid injection. © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.