Patent ID: 7283941

Claim:
A method for modeling fluid depletion, the method comprising the steps of dividing a map into cells; storing a value for each of the map cells based at least in part on a physical characteristic of the cell; identifying a cell that contains a first removal location, the first removal location having a first removal amount; specifying a number of walkers for the first removal location; for each walker, calculating a plurality of steps starting at the associated removal location, each step made to an adjacent cell, the choice of adjacent cell being weighted at least in part by the value of the cells; recording the steps of all the walkers by cell; and assessing fluid depletion of each cell based at least in part on the number of walker steps for each cell, including: (a) dividing the first removal amount by the sum of the number of steps for all walkers to determine a depletion amount per step; (b) allocating to each cell the product of the depletion amount per step and the number of steps recorded for that cell; (c) if one or more cells is allocated more than a maximum depletion amount: adding together the amount of allocation above the maximum depletion amount for the one or more cells to determine the remaining depletion amount; lowering the allocation for the one or more cells to the maximum depletion amount; dividing the remaining depletion amount by the sum of the number of recorded steps for cells that have been allocated less than the maximum depletion amount to determine a remaining depletion amount per step; adding to the allocation to each cell that has been allocated less than the maximum depletion amount the product of the remaining depletion amount per step and the number of steps recorded for that cell; and (d) repeating step (c) until no cell is allocated more than the maximum depletion amount.