LAUSR

Abstract Geomechanical characteristics should be simulated accurately given their significant effects on the whole flow patterns in porous media. However, the coupled geomechanics and flow simulation imposes severe computational challenges to the computer resources. Therefore, the demand for accurate and efficient numerical techniques is widely increasing in applications. In this work, a hybrid multiscale algorithm is developed for solving coupled flow and geomechanics problems. Two sets of multiscale basis functions for the coupled problems are constructed, respectively. Multiscale Finite Element Method (MsFEM) is adopted to solve the local solid deformation problems within coarse cells to construct displacement basis functions. To generate conservative velocity and pressure fields, the flow basis functions are constructed using the Multiscale Mimetic Method. The proposed hybrid multiscale method is appealing for its advantage of solving coarse-scale problems while capturing fine-scale information. Numerical results are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed multiscale method. The comparisons between MsFEM and the standard method tell us that the multiscale method is a promising method for coupled geomechanics and reservoir simulations.