Patents by Inventor Hamdi A. Tchelepi

Hamdi A. Tchelepi has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Publication number: 20230125944
    Abstract: A reservoir simulation platform is provided. The reservoir simulation platform includes a mimetic finite discretization scheme and an operator-based linearization approach. The reservoir simulation system further includes a parallel framework for coupling the mimetic finite discretization scheme and the operator-based linearization approach.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 25, 2022
    Publication date: April 27, 2023
    Inventors: Ahmad Sami Abushaika, Kirill Terekhov, Longlong Li, Hamdi Tchelepi, Denis Voskov
  • Patent number: 11280935
    Abstract: A method can include receiving information associated with a geologic environment; based at least in part on the information, computing values associated with multiphase fluid flow in the geologic environment using a viscous flow upwind scheme and a buoyancy flow upwind scheme; and outputting at least a portion of the computed values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2022
    Assignees: CHEVRON U.S.A. INC., SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
    Inventors: Seong Lee, Yalchin Efendiev, Hamdi Tchelepi
  • Publication number: 20180329112
    Abstract: A method can include receiving information associated with a geologic environment; based at least in part on the information, computing values associated with multiphase fluid flow in the geologic environment using a viscous flow upwind scheme and a buoyancy flow upwind scheme; and outputting at least a portion of the computed values.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 29, 2016
    Publication date: November 15, 2018
    Inventors: Seong Lee, Yalchin Efendiev, Hamdi Tchelepi
  • Patent number: 8412502
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of performing an oilfield operation of an oilfield having at least one wellsite, each wellsite having a wellbore penetrating a subterranean formation for extracting fluid from an underground reservoir therein. The method includes determining a time-step for simulating the reservoir, the reservoir being represented as a plurality of gridded cells and being modeled as a multi-phase system using a plurality of partial differential equations, calculating a plurality of Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) conditions of the reservoir model corresponding to the time-step, the plurality of CFL conditions comprising a temperature CFL condition, a composition CFL condition, and a saturation CFL condition, simulating a first cell of the plurality of gridded cells with an Implicit Pressure, Explicit Saturations (IMPES) system, and simulating a second cell of the plurality of gridded cells with a Fully Implicit Method (FIM) system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2010
    Date of Patent: April 2, 2013
    Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Arthur Regis Catherin Moncorge, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Patent number: 8346523
    Abstract: Computer-implemented systems and methods are provided for an upscaling approach based on dynamic simulation of a given model. A system and method can be configured such that the accuracy of the upscaled model is continuously monitored via indirect error measures. If the indirect error measures are bigger than a specified tolerance, the upscaled model is dynamically updated with approximate fine-scale information that is reconstructed by a multi-scale finite volume method. Upscaling of multi-phase flow can include flow information in the underlying fine-scale. Adaptive prolongation and restriction operators are applied for flow and transport equations in constructing an approximate fine-scale solution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 1, 2009
    Date of Patent: January 1, 2013
    Assignees: Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Seong H. Lee, Hui Zhou, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Patent number: 8204726
    Abstract: A multi-scale method to efficiently determine the fine-scale saturation arising from multi-phase flow in a subsurface reservoir is disclosed. The method includes providing a simulation model that includes a fine-scale grid defining a plurality of fine-scale cells, and a coarse-scale grid defining a plurality of coarse-scale cells that are aggregates of the fine-scale cells. The coarse-scale cells are partitioned into saturation regions responsive to velocity and/or saturation changes from the saturation front. A fine-scale saturation is determined for each region and the saturation regions are assembled to obtain a fine-scale saturation distribution. A visual display can be output responsive to the fine-scale saturation distribution.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 14, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 19, 2012
    Assignees: Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Seong H. Lee, Hui Zhou, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Publication number: 20110077922
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of performing an oilfield operation of an oilfield having at least one wellsite, each wellsite having a wellbore penetrating a subterranean formation for extracting fluid from an underground reservoir therein. The method includes determining a time-step for simulating the reservoir, the reservoir being represented as a plurality of gridded cells and being modeled as a multi-phase system using a plurality of partial differential equations, calculating a plurality of Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) conditions of the reservoir model corresponding to the time-step, the plurality of CFL conditions comprising a temperature CFL condition, a composition CFL condition, and a saturation CFL condition, simulating a first cell of the plurality of gridded cells with an Implicit Pressure, Explicit Saturations (IMPES) system, and simulating a second cell of the plurality of gridded cells with a Fully Implicit Method (FIM) system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 3, 2010
    Publication date: March 31, 2011
    Applicants: SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY CORPORATON, TOTAL SA, CHEVRON U.S.A. INC.
    Inventors: Arthur MONCORGÉ, Hamdi A. TCHELEPI
  • Patent number: 7877246
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of performing an oilfield operation of an oilfield having at least one wellsite, each wellsite having a wellbore penetrating a subterranean formation for extracting fluid from an underground reservoir therein. The method includes determining a time-step for simulating the reservoir, the reservoir being represented as a plurality of gridded cells and being modeled as a multi-phase system using a plurality of partial differential equations, calculating a plurality of Courant-Friedrichs-Lewy (CFL) conditions of the reservoir model corresponding to the time-step, the plurality of CFL conditions comprising a temperature CFL condition, a composition CFL condition, and a saturation CFL condition, simulating a first cell of the plurality of gridded cells with an Implicit Pressure, Explicit Saturations (IMPES) system, and simulating a second cell of the plurality of gridded cells with a Fully Implicit Method (FIM) system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 21, 2007
    Date of Patent: January 25, 2011
    Assignees: Schlumberger Technology Corporation, Total SA, Chevron U.S.A Inc.
    Inventors: Arthur Regis Catherin Moncorgé, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Patent number: 7765091
    Abstract: A multi-scale finite-volume (MSFV) method simulates nonlinear immiscible three-phase compressible flow in the presence of gravity and capillary forces. Consistent with the MSFV framework, flow and transport are treated separately and differently using a fully implicit sequential algorithm. The pressure field is solved using an operator splitting algorithm. The general solution of the pressure is decomposed into an elliptic part, a buoyancy/capillary force dominant part, and an inhomogeneous part with source/sink and accumulation. A MSFV method is used to compute the basis functions of the elliptic component, capturing long range interactions in the pressure field. Direct construction of the velocity field and solution of the transport problem on the primal coarse grid provides flexibility in accommodating physical mechanisms. A MSFV method computes an approximate pressure field, including a solution of a course-scale pressure equation; constructs fine-scale fluxes; and computes a phase-transport equation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2007
    Date of Patent: July 27, 2010
    Assignees: Chevron U.S.A Inc., Schlumberger Technology Corporation, ETH Zurich
    Inventors: Seong H. Lee, Christian Wolfsteiner, Hamdi A. Tchelepi, Patrick Jenny, Ivan Fabrizio Lunati
  • Patent number: 7684967
    Abstract: A method, system, a program storage device and apparatus are disclosed for conducting a reservoir simulation, using a reservoir model of a region of interest, wherein the region of interest has been gridded into cells. Each cell has one or more unknown variable. Each cell has a node. A graph of the nodes is represented by a sparse matrix. The graph is an initially decomposed into a pre-specified number of domains, such that each cell exists in at least one domain. The cells and domains are numbered. Each cell has a key, the key of each cell is the set of domain numbers to which the cell belongs. Each cell has a class, the class of each cell being the number of elements in the cell. The cells are grouped into connectors, each connector being the set of cells that share the same key. Each connector having a connector class, the connector class being the number of elements in the key of the connector.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 14, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 23, 2010
    Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: John Wallis, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Publication number: 20100057413
    Abstract: Computer-implemented systems and methods are provided for an upscaling approach based on dynamic simulation of a given model. A system and method can be configured such that the accuracy of the upscaled model is continuously monitored via indirect error measures. If the indirect error measures are bigger than a specified tolerance, the upscaled model is dynamically updated with approximate fine-scale information that is reconstructed by a multi-scale finite volume method. Upscaling of multi-phase flow can include flow information in the underlying fine-scale. Adaptive prolongation and restriction operators are applied for flow and transport equations in constructing an approximate fine-scale solution.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 1, 2009
    Publication date: March 4, 2010
    Applicant: Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
    Inventors: Seong H. Lee, Hui Zhou, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Publication number: 20090319242
    Abstract: A multi-scale method to efficiently determine the fine-scale saturation arising from multi-phase flow in a subsurface reservoir is disclosed. The method includes providing a simulation model that includes a fine-scale grid defining a plurality of fine-scale cells, and a coarse-scale grid defining a plurality of coarse-scale cells that are aggregates of the fine-scale cells. The coarse-scale cells are partitioned into saturation regions responsive to velocity and/or saturation changes from the saturation front. A fine-scale saturation is determined for each region and the saturation regions are assembled to obtain a fine-scale saturation distribution. A visual display can be output responsive to the fine-scale saturation distribution.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 14, 2009
    Publication date: December 24, 2009
    Applicants: Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Seong H. Lee, Hui Zhou, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Patent number: 7546229
    Abstract: A multi-scale finite-volume (MSFV) method to solve elliptic problems with a plurality of spatial scales arising from single or multi-phase flows in porous media is provided. Two sets of locally computed basis functions are employed. A first set of basis functions captures the small-scale heterogeneity of the underlying permeability field, and it is computed to construct the effective coarse-scale transmissibilities. A second set of basis functions is required to construct a conservative fine-scale velocity field. The method efficiently captures the effects of small scales on a coarse grid, is conservative, and treats tensor permeabilities correctly. The underlying idea is to construct transmissibilities that capture the local properties of a differential operator. This leads to a multi-point discretization scheme for a finite-volume solution algorithm. Transmissibilities for the MSFV method are preferably constructed only once as a preprocessing step and can be computed locally.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 22, 2004
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2009
    Assignees: Chevron U.S.A. Inc., Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: Patrick Jenny, Seong Lee, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Patent number: 7516056
    Abstract: A method, system and apparatus are disclosed for conducting a reservoir simulation, using a reservoir model of a gridded region of interest. The grid of the region of interest includes one or more types of cells, the type of cell being distinguished by the number of unknown variables representing properties of the cells. The cells share a common variable as an unknown variable. The method includes the steps of identifying different cell types for the grid; constructing an overall matrix for the reservoir model based on the different cell types; at least partially decoupling the common variable from the other unknown variables in the matrix by using a reduction process to yield a reduced matrix; mathematically breaking up the variables in the reduced matrix into k subsets by cell types; applying an overlapping multiplicative Schwartz procedure to the reduced matrix to obtain a preconditioner and using the preconditioner to solve for the unknown variables.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 25, 2006
    Date of Patent: April 7, 2009
    Assignee: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: John Wallis, Hamdi A. Tchelepi, Hui Cao
  • Patent number: 7505882
    Abstract: An apparatus and method are provided for solving a non-linear S-shaped function F=ƒ(S) which is representative of a property S in a physical system, such saturation in a reservoir simulation. A Newton iteration (T) is performed on the function ƒ(S) at Sv to determine a next iterative value Sv+1. It is then determined whether Sv+1 is located on the opposite side of the inflection point Sc from Sv. If Sv+1 is located on the opposite side of the inflection point from Sv, then Sv+1 is set to Sl, a modified new estimate. The modified new estimate, Sl, is preferably set to either the inflection point, Sc, or to an average value between Sv and Sv+1, i.e., Sl=0.5(Sv+Sv+1). The above steps are repeated until Sv+1 is within the predetermined convergence criteria. Also, solution algorithms are described for two-phase and three-phase flow with gravity and capillary pressure.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 15, 2006
    Date of Patent: March 17, 2009
    Assignee: Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
    Inventors: Patrick Jenny, Hamdi A. Tchelepi, Seong H. Lee
  • Publication number: 20090055141
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method of performing an oilfield operation of an oilfield having at least one wellsite, each wellsite having a wellbore penetrating a subterranean formation for extracting fluid from an underground reservoir therein.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 21, 2007
    Publication date: February 26, 2009
    Applicants: SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION, Total SA, Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
    Inventors: Arthur Moncorge, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Patent number: 7496488
    Abstract: A multi-scale finite-volume (MSFV) method to solve elliptic problems with a plurality of spatial scales arising from single or multi-phase flows in porous media is provided. The method efficiently captures the effects of small scales on a coarse grid, is conservative, and treats tensor permeabilities correctly. The underlying idea is to construct transmissibilities that capture the local properties of a differential operator. This leads to a multi-point discretization scheme for a finite-volume solution algorithm. Transmissibilities for the MSFV method are preferably constructed only once as a preprocessing step and can be computed locally.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2004
    Date of Patent: February 24, 2009
    Assignees: Schlumberger Technology Company, Chevron U.S.A. Inc., ETH Zurich
    Inventors: Patrick Jenny, Seong Lee, Hamdi A. Tchelepi
  • Publication number: 20080208539
    Abstract: A multi-scale finite-volume (MSFV) method simulates nonlinear immiscible three-phase compressible flow in the presence of gravity and capillary forces. Consistent with the MSFV framework, flow and transport are treated separately and differently using a fully implicit sequential algorithm. The pressure field is solved using an operator splitting algorithm. The general solution of the pressure is decomposed into an elliptic part, a buoyancy/capillary force dominant part, and an inhomogeneous part with source/sink and accumulation. A MSFV method is used to compute the basis functions of the elliptic component, capturing long range interactions in the pressure field. Direct construction of the velocity field and solution of the transport problem on the primal coarse grid provides flexibility in accommodating physical mechanisms. A MSFV method computes an approximate pressure field, including a solution of a course-scale pressure equation; constructs fine-scale fluxes; and computes a phase-transport equation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 14, 2007
    Publication date: August 28, 2008
    Applicant: Chevron U.S.A. Inc.
    Inventors: Seong H. Lee, Christian Wolfsteiner, Hamdi A. Tchelepi, Patrick Jenny, Ivan Fabrizio Lunati
  • Publication number: 20070010979
    Abstract: A method, system, a program storage device and apparatus are disclosed for conducting a reservoir simulation, using a reservoir model of a region of interest, wherein the region of interest has been gridded into cells. Each cell has one or more unknown variable. Each cell has a node. A graph of the nodes is represented by a sparse matrix. The graph is an initially decomposed into a pre-specified number of domains, such that each cell exists in at least one domain. The cells and domains are numbered. Each cell has a key, the key of each cell is the set of domain numbers to which the cell belongs. Each cell has a class, the class of each cell being the number of elements in the cell. The cells are grouped into connectors, each connector being the set of cells that share the same key. Each connector having a connector class, the connector class being the number of elements in the key of the connector.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 14, 2006
    Publication date: January 11, 2007
    Applicant: SCHLUMBERGER TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION
    Inventors: John Wallis, Hamdi Tchelepi
  • Publication number: 20060265204
    Abstract: A method, system and apparatus are disclosed for conducting a reservoir simulation, using a reservoir model of a gridded region of interest. The grid of the region of interest includes one or more types of cells, the type of cell being distinguished by the number of unknown variables representing properties of the cells. The cells share a common variable as an unknown variable. The method includes the steps of identifying different cell types for the grid; constructing an overall matrix for the reservoir model based on the different cell types; at least partially decoupling the common variable from the other unknown variables in the matrix by using a reduction process to yield a reduced matrix; mathematically breaking up the variables in the reduced matrix into k subsets by cell types; applying an overlapping multiplicative Schwartz procedure to the reduced matrix to obtain a preconditioner and using the preconditioner to solve for the unknown variables.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 25, 2006
    Publication date: November 23, 2006
    Applicant: Schlumberger Technology Corporation
    Inventors: John Wallis, Hamdi Tchelepi, Hui Cao