Message-Passing-Interface MPI Parallelization of Iteratively Coupled Fluid Flow and Geomechanics Codes for the Simulation of System Behavior in Hydrate-Bearing Geologic Media

Abstract

The Reservoir GeoMechanics Simulator (RGMS), a geomechanics simulator based on the finite element method and parallelized using the Message Passing Interface (MPI), is developed in this work to model the stresses and deformations in subsurface systems. RGMS can be used stand-alone, or coupled with flow and transport models. pT+H V1.5, a parallel MPI-based version of the serial T+H V1.5 code that describes mass and heat flow in hydrate-bearing porous media, is also developed. Using the fixed-stress split iterative scheme, RGMS is coupled with the pT+H V1.5 to investigate the geomechanical responses associated with gas production from hydrate accumulations. The code development and testing process involve evaluation of the parallelization and of the coupling method, as well as verification and validation of the results. The parallel performance of the codes is tested on the Ada Linux cluster of the Texas A&M High Performance Research Computing using up to 512 processors, and on a Mac Pro computer with 12 processors. The investigated problems are: Group 1: Geomechanical problems solved by RGMS in 2D Cartesian and cylindrical domains and a 3D problem, involving 4x106 and 3.375 x106 elements, respectively; Group 2: Realistic problems of gas production from hydrates using pT+H V1.5 in 2D and 3D systems with 2.45x105 and 3.6 x106 elements, respectively; Group 3: The 3D problem in Group 2 solved with the coupled RGMS-pT+H V1.5 simulator, fully accounting for geomechanics. Two domain partitioning options are investigated on the Ada Linux cluster and the Mac Pro, and the code parallel performance is monitored. On the Ada Linux cluster using 512 processors, the simulation speedups (a) of RGMS are 218.89, 188.13, and 284.70 in the Group 1 problems, (b) of pT+H V1.5 are 174.25 and 341.67 in the Group 2 cases, and (c) of the coupled simulators is 331.80 in Group 3. The results produced in this work show the necessity of using full geomechanics simulators in marine hydrate-related studies because of the associated pronounced geomechanical effects on production and displacements and (b) the effectiveness of the parallel simulators developed in this study, which can be the only realistic option in these complex simulations of large multi-dimensional domains.