Patent ID: 8386225

Claim:
A method for optimizing development of a fluid reservoir traversed by a fracture network, wherein the fluid reservoir is discretized into a set of grid cells and an image representative of the fracture network defining porous blocks and fractures is associated with each grid cell, from direct and indirect reservoir observations, comprising: determining, within each cell, a transient exchange flow occurring between the porous blocks and the fractures, by processing the image representative of the fracture network; simulating fluid flows in the reservoir by using a computer implemented flow simulator and the transient exchange flow; and optimizing the reservoir development by using the simulating fluid flows in the reservoir; and wherein the transient exchange flow is determined from estimation of a relationship representing, for a given cell, an advance of an exchange front within the porous blocks, according to an advance distance of the exchange front and the transient exchange flow is determined by calculating the advance distance of the exchange front for a time step from fluid flow simulation results for a prior time step and from a relationship representing the advance of the exchange front, calculating a geological and a transient shape factor according to the advance distance of the exchange front and the relationship representing the advance of the exchange front, and calculating the transient exchange flow using the transient shape factor.