A hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin method for two-phase flow in heterogeneous porous media

Abstract: We present a new method for simulating incompressible immiscible two-phase flow in porous media. The semi-implicit method decouples the wetting phase pressure and saturation equations. The equations are discretized using a hybridizable discontinuous Galerkin (HDG) method. The proposed method is of high order, conserves global/local mass balance, and the number of globally coupled degrees of freedom is significantly reduced compared to standard interior penalty discontinuous Galerkin methods. Several numerical examples illustrate the accuracy and robustness of the method. These examples include verification of convergence rates by manufactured solutions, common 1D benchmarks and realistic discontinuous permeability fields.