• Develop the OPM framework by bringing together the expertise of the involved research groups:
  • Algorithm and open software development for the solution of PDEs, including effcient iterative solvers, and support for concurrent computing
  • Numerical methods for reservoir simulation and CO₂ sequestration
  • Nonisothermal, compositional, multiphase flow and transport
  • Structural modelling, complex grids, industry standards
  • Upscaling and simulation of core flow experiments
• Develop a set of benchmark tests to accompany the simulator suite, including both simplified synthetic models and models with industry-standard complexity.
• Support ongoing research projects with simulator development.
• Provide the educational sector with a simulator well suited for teaching purposes.
• Provide the industry sector with a simulator well suited for testing new research results and new modelling approaches and workflows.

Development of a state-of-the-art porous media simulator

The OPM software suite will contain support for industry-standard grid formats and the example simulators will offer both traditional and state-of-the-art discretizations (multipoint and multiscale). A key challenge is to develop efficient strategies for solving coupled nonlinear systems, which is a prerequisite to achieve a flexible and modular framework. Full flexibility (e.g., with respect to different types of functional dependencies) is a particular argument for open-source software. Through the DUNE interface, the user will have access to modern (non)linear solvers and methodologies for parallel processing that have not yet fully penetrated commercial simulators. In other words, for academia, OPM will offer functionality to study state-of-the-art (geological) models, whereas for the industry, OPM will offer state-of-the-art computational methodologies.

Bridge the gap between different applications

Porous media modeling is of tremendous importance for many quite diverse natural, industrial, and biological systems. For example, reservoir simulation and subsurface ow are based on the same model equations, but whereas reservoir simulation focuses on advection-dominated flow, gravity and capillary forces are dominant in water research. Simulation of injection and migration of CO₂ in saline aquifers will need methods developed for both of these regimes. A strong collaboration between the participating groups may facilitate new computational methods for this regime where all forces are important. The new open-source software is expected to be further developed for simulating groundwater resources, subsurface contaminants, and CO₂ sequestration. Moreover, the software will potentially also be important for groundwater management, which is becoming a very important environmental question. Other possible areas of impact are the study of enhanced geothermal systems and convection-enhanced delivery of therapeutic agents into tumors.

New knowledge

The OPM initiative is, to the best of our knowledge, the first attempt to develop a porous media simulator based entirely on open-software principles with the aim to accelerate production of new knowledge/technology in ongoing and future research projects and accelerate the adoption of new computational technologies in the industry. The OPM initiative will develop and implement a novel set of abstract interfaces to separate data structures and algorithms for computational methodologies that are already available in the literature or under development.

Doctoral and postdoctoral research

A successful initiative will be instrumental in accelerating the research of future generations of doctoral and postdoctoral fellows. We expect rapid adoption among master students and (post)doctoral fellows at the participating universities working on new methods for porous media simulation.