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There is no doubt that density is one of the most crucial thermophysical properties of hybrid nanofluids in thermal energy applications. Various research papers have been devoted to thermophysical properties of various hybrid nanofluids. However, a few of them focused on the simultaneous effects of nanoparticles, base fluids, and other factors on the density of hybrid nanofluids. In this research, a comparative study was conducted on non-parametric and evolutionary machine learning paradigms, namely, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Spline (MARS) and Evolutionary Polynomial Regression (EPR) models to accurately predict the density of a wide variety type of nanofluids in thermal energy applications. Here, for providing the predictive models, 501 data points were collected from the reliable recent literature. Besides, the Gene Expression Programming (GEP) and Multivariate Linear Regression (MLR) models were examined for validating the outcomes of MARS and EPR models. The comprehensive assessment demonstrated that the MARS outperformed the other models.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present detailed algorithms for simulation of individual and group control of production wells in hydrocarbon reservoirs which are implemented in a finite volume-based reservoir simulator. Design/methodology/approach The algorithm for individual control is described for the multi-lateral multi-connection ones based on the multi-segment model considering cross-flow. Moreover, a general group control algorithm is proposed which can be coupled with any well model that can handle a constraint and returns the flow rates. The performance of oil production process based on the group control criteria is investigated and compared for various cases. Findings The proposed algorithm for group control of production wells is a non-optimization iterative scheme converging within a few number of iterations. The numerical results of many computer runs indicate that the nominal power of the production wells, in general, is the best group control criterion for the proposed algorithm. The production well group control with a proper criterion can generally improve the oil recovery process at negligible computational costs when compared with individual control of production wells. Research/limitations/implications Although the group control algorithm is implemented for both production and injection wells in the developed simulator, the numerical algorithm is here described only for production wells to provide more details. Practical/implications The proposed algorithm can be coupled with any well model providing the fluid flow rates and can be efficiently used for group control of production wells. In addition, the calculated flow rates of the production wells based on the group control algorithm can be used as candidate solutions for the optimizer in the simulation-optimization models. It may reduce the total number of iterations and consequently the computational cost of the simulation-optimization models for the well control problem. Originality/value A complete and detailed description of ingredients of an efficient well group control algorithm for the hydrocarbon reservoir is presented. Five group control criteria are extracted from the physical, geometrical and operating conditions of the wells/reservoir. These are the target rate, weighted potential, ultimate rate and introduced nominal power of the production wells. The performance of the group control of production wells with different group control criteria is compared in three different oil production scenarios from a black-oil and highly heterogeneous reservoir.

Two-phase incompressible fluid flow through highly heterogeneous porous media is simulated by using the Multiscale Finite Volume (MsFV) method. Effects of the localization assumption on the accuracy of the MsFV are investigated by comparing the results associated with different boundary conditions of local problems producing the basis functions. The total number of six boundary conditions of two general types, including Dirichlet and Dirichlet-Neumann types, are compared. For the former, the linear, variable (reduced), and step-type boundary conditions are considered and a modified variable boundary condition is proposed. For the latter, a basic and a step-type Neumann-Dirichlet boundary condition are suggested. To estimate the errors in the MsFV solutions for continuous problems, a heterogeneous two-dimensional problem with continuous permeability field is designed and solved analytically. Synthetic two-scale permeability fields as well as highly heterogeneous random fields are used to assess the accuracy of the MsFV solutions with different localization schemes, in comparison with the fine-scale reference solution. Numerical results indicate that the modified variable boundary condition, with a proper value of its weighting factor, can generally produce the most accurate results, when compared with the other localization schemes.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed algorithm for simulating three-dimensional hydrocarbon reservoirs using the blackoil model. Design/methodology/approach – The numerical algorithm uses a cell-centred structured grid finite volume method. The blackoil formulation is written in a way that an Implicit Pressure Explicit Saturation approach can be used. The flow field is obtained by solving a general gas pressure equation derived by manipulating the governing equations. All possible variations of the pressure equation coefficients are given for different reservoir conditions. Key computational details including treatment of non-linear terms, expansion of accumulation terms, transitions from under-saturated to saturated states and vice versa, high gas injection rates, evolution of gas in the oil production wells and adaptive time-stepping procedures are elaborated. Findings – It was shown that using a proper linearization method, less computational difficulties occur especially when free gas is released with high rates. The computational performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed by solving the first SPE comparative study problem with both constant and variable bubble point conditions. Research limitations/implications – While discretization is performed and implemented for unstructured grids, the numerical results are presented only for structured grids, as expected, the accuracy of numerical results are best for structured grids. Also, the reservoir is assumed to be non-fractured. Practical implications – The proposed algorithm can be efficiently used for simulating a wide range of practical problems wherever blackoil model is applicable. Originality/value – A complete and detailed description of ingredients of an efficient finite volume-based algorithm for simulating blackoil flows in hydrocarbon reservoirs is presented.