The effect of spatial aperture variations on the thermal performance of discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs
Abstract
The effect of spatial aperture variations on the thermal performance of discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs was investigated using finite element method solutions to the convective heat transfer in the fracture coupled with a boundary integral description of conductive heat transfer in the rock. The dipolar flow was generated by a source of fluid volume at an injection well and a sink at a production well within a circular fracture. The statistics of the thermal performance of an ensemble of fracture realizations was evaluated. Fractures with self-affine aperture fields where long range correlations dominant over short range correlations were generated. The results showed that spatial aperture variations most frequently lead to diminished thermal performance by creating flow channeling that reduces the heat transfer area. Enhanced thermal performance occurred in the less common cases when the aperture was small in the region between the wellbores, causing fluid flow to sweep out greater areas of the fracture and extract heat from a larger area. The standard deviation of the apertures had the largest influence on the thermal performance, while the spatial correlation of the aperture played a secondary role. Larger values of the standard deviation led to more adverse thermal performance. For themore »
- Authors:
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Cornell Univ., Ithaca, NY (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1503035
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1843948
- Grant/Contract Number:
- EE0000842; EE0006764
- Resource Type:
- Published Article
- Journal Name:
- Geothermal Energy
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Name: Geothermal Energy Journal Volume: 3 Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2195-9706
- Publisher:
- Springer Science + Business Media
- Country of Publication:
- Germany
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY; Enhanced geothermal systems; Aperture variations; Roughness; Discrete fractures; Heat transport in fractures; Coupled convective conductive heat transport; Thermal hydraulic modeling; Geothermal reservoir performance modeling
Citation Formats
Fox, Don Bruce, Koch, Donald Lyle, and Tester, Jefferson William. The effect of spatial aperture variations on the thermal performance of discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs. Germany: N. p., 2015.
Web. doi:10.1186/s40517-015-0039-z.
Fox, Don Bruce, Koch, Donald Lyle, & Tester, Jefferson William. The effect of spatial aperture variations on the thermal performance of discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs. Germany. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40517-015-0039-z
Fox, Don Bruce, Koch, Donald Lyle, and Tester, Jefferson William. Wed .
"The effect of spatial aperture variations on the thermal performance of discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs". Germany. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40517-015-0039-z.
@article{osti_1503035,
title = {The effect of spatial aperture variations on the thermal performance of discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs},
author = {Fox, Don Bruce and Koch, Donald Lyle and Tester, Jefferson William},
abstractNote = {The effect of spatial aperture variations on the thermal performance of discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs was investigated using finite element method solutions to the convective heat transfer in the fracture coupled with a boundary integral description of conductive heat transfer in the rock. The dipolar flow was generated by a source of fluid volume at an injection well and a sink at a production well within a circular fracture. The statistics of the thermal performance of an ensemble of fracture realizations was evaluated. Fractures with self-affine aperture fields where long range correlations dominant over short range correlations were generated. The results showed that spatial aperture variations most frequently lead to diminished thermal performance by creating flow channeling that reduces the heat transfer area. Enhanced thermal performance occurred in the less common cases when the aperture was small in the region between the wellbores, causing fluid flow to sweep out greater areas of the fracture and extract heat from a larger area. The standard deviation of the apertures had the largest influence on the thermal performance, while the spatial correlation of the aperture played a secondary role. Larger values of the standard deviation led to more adverse thermal performance. For the range of standard deviations investigated, the fraction of fractures exhibiting enhanced thermal performance compared to the base case of no aperture variations ranged from 34 to 49 %. The degradation of thermal performance due to aperture variations was largest when the well bore spacing was a larger fraction of the fracture diameter. Reservoirs consisting of two non-intersecting fractures connected to the same injection and production wells were also modeled. The uneven split of the flow between the reservoirs in this case caused a further deterioration of thermal performance compared with the single fracture reservoirs. However, flow control was able to overcome nearly all of the additional loss of thermal performance for the multifracture reservoir.},
doi = {10.1186/s40517-015-0039-z},
journal = {Geothermal Energy},
number = 1,
volume = 3,
place = {Germany},
year = {2015},
month = {10}
}
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40517-015-0039-z
Web of Science
Works referenced in this record:
Uncertainty analysis of thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled processes in heterogeneous porous media
journal, November 2009
- Watanabe, Norihiro; Wang, Wenqing; McDermott, Christopher I.
- Computational Mechanics, Vol. 45, Issue 4
A three-dimensional thermo-poroelastic model for fracture response to injection/extraction in enhanced geothermal systems
journal, March 2011
- Ghassemi, A.; Zhou, X.
- Geothermics, Vol. 40, Issue 1
Comparing flux-averaged and resident concentration in a fractured bedrock using ground penetrating radar: CONCENTRATION IN BEDROCK
journal, September 2010
- Becker, Matthew W.; Tsoflias, Georgios P.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 46, Issue 9
Scaling properties of cracks
journal, May 1997
- Bouchaud, Elisabeth
- Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Vol. 9, Issue 21
Hydraulic conductivity of rock fractures
journal, April 1996
- Zimmerman, RobertW.; Bodvarsson, GudmundurS.
- Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 23, Issue 1
Reduction of the horizontal well's heel–toe effect with inflow control devices
journal, December 2010
- Birchenko, V. M.; Muradov, K. M.; Davies, D. R.
- Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, Vol. 75, Issue 1-2
Joint estimation of transmissivity and storativity in a bedrock fracture: ESTIMATION OF TRANSMISSIVITY AND STORATIVITY
journal, September 2011
- Castagna, Marta; Becker, Matthew W.; Bellin, Alberto
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 47, Issue 9
A variable aperture fracture network model for flow and transport in fractured rocks
journal, June 1992
- Nordqvist, A. Wille; Tsang, Y. W.; Tsang, C. F.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 28, Issue 6
Permeability of self-affine rough fractures
journal, December 2000
- Drazer, German; Koplik, Joel
- Physical Review E, Vol. 62, Issue 6
Ground-penetrating-radar response to fracture-fluid salinity: Why lower frequencies are favorable for resolving salinity changes
journal, September 2008
- Tsoflias, Georgios P.; Becker, Matthew W.
- GEOPHYSICS, Vol. 73, Issue 5
Modelling flow and heat transfer in fractured rocks: dimensional effect of matrix heat diffusion
journal, June 1995
- Kolditz, O.
- Geothermics, Vol. 24, Issue 3
Simulation of heat extraction from crystalline rocks: The influence of coupled processes on differential reservoir cooling
journal, June 2006
- McDermott, Christopher I.; Randriamanjatosoa, Andreas R. L.; Tenzer, Helmut
- Geothermics, Vol. 35, Issue 3
Field measurements of the roughness of fault surfaces
journal, April 1993
- Schmittbuhl, Jean; Gentier, Sylvie; Roux, Stéphane
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 20, Issue 8
Geometrical heterogeneities and permeability anisotropy of rough fractures
journal, February 2001
- Méheust, Y.; Schmittbuhl, J.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 106, Issue B2
A three-dimensional integral equation model for calculating poro- and thermoelastic stresses induced by cold water injection into a geothermal reservoir
journal, October 2009
- Zhou, X. X.; Ghassemi, A.; Cheng, A. H. -D.
- International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, Vol. 33, Issue 14
A reactive thermo-poroelastic analysis of water injection into an enhanced geothermal reservoir
journal, April 2014
- Rawal, Chakra; Ghassemi, Ahmad
- Geothermics, Vol. 50
Effect of shear displacement on the aperture and permeability of a rock fracture
journal, December 1998
- Yeo, I. W.; de Freitas, M. H.; Zimmerman, R. W.
- International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, Vol. 35, Issue 8
Integral equation solution of heat extraction from a fracture in hot dry rock
journal, January 2001
- Cheng, A. H. -D.; Ghassemi, A.; Detournay, E.
- International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, Vol. 25, Issue 13
Roughness of sandstone fracture surfaces: Profilometry and shadow length investigations
journal, January 1999
- Boffa, J. M.; Allain, C.; Chertcoff, R.
- The European Physical Journal B, Vol. 7, Issue 2
Sustainable heat farming: Modeling extraction and recovery in discretely fractured geothermal reservoirs
journal, April 2013
- Fox, Don B.; Sutter, Daniel; Beckers, Koenraad F.
- Geothermics, Vol. 46
3D model of fracture zones at Soultz-sous-Forêts based on geological data, image logs, induced microseismicity and vertical seismic profiles
journal, July 2010
- Sausse, Judith; Dezayes, Chrystel; Dorbath, Louis
- Comptes Rendus Geoscience, Vol. 342, Issue 7-8
Scaling invariance of crack surfaces
journal, April 1995
- Schmittbuhl, Jean; Schmitt, François; Scholz, Christopher
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 100, Issue B4
Broad bandwidth study of the topography of natural rock surfaces
journal, January 1985
- Brown, Stephen R.; Scholz, Christopher H.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 90, Issue B14
Hydromechanical properties and alteration of natural fracture surfaces in the Soultz granite (Bas-Rhin, France)
journal, April 2002
- Sausse, Judith
- Tectonophysics, Vol. 348, Issue 1-3
Fluid flow in synthetic rough fractures and application to the Hachimantai geothermal hot dry rock test site
journal, May 1998
- Glover, P. W. J.; Matsuki, K.; Hikima, R.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 103, Issue B5
Determination of aperture structure and fluid flow in a rock fracture by high-resolution numerical modeling on the basis of a flow-through experiment under confining pressure: DETERMINATION OF APERTURE STRUCTURE
journal, June 2008
- Watanabe, Noriaki; Hirano, Nobuo; Tsuchiya, Noriyoshi
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 44, Issue 6
Hydrothermal coupling in a self-affine rough fracture
journal, September 2010
- Neuville, A.; Toussaint, R.; Schmittbuhl, J.
- Physical Review E, Vol. 82, Issue 3
Fracture roughness and thermal exchange: A case study at Soultz-sous-Forêts
journal, July 2010
- Neuville, Amélie; Toussaint, Renaud; Schmittbuhl, Jean
- Comptes Rendus Geoscience, Vol. 342, Issue 7-8
Miscible transfer of solute in different model fractures: From random to multiscale wall roughness
journal, July 2010
- Auradou, Harold; Boschan, Alejandro; Chertcoff, Ricardo
- Comptes Rendus Geoscience, Vol. 342, Issue 7-8
Flow channeling in a single fracture induced by shear displacement
journal, October 2006
- Auradou, Harold; Drazer, German; Boschan, Alejandro
- Geothermics, Vol. 35, Issue 5-6
Modelling of a european prototype hdr reservoir
journal, June 1995
- Jupe, A. J.; Bruel, D.; Hicks, T.
- Geothermics, Vol. 24, Issue 3
Failure mechanisms and surface roughness statistics of fractured Fontainebleau sandstone
journal, September 2007
- Ponson, L.; Auradou, H.; Pessel, M.
- Physical Review E, Vol. 76, Issue 3
Algorithm 368: Numerical inversion of Laplace transforms [D5]
journal, January 1970
- Stehfest, Harald
- Communications of the ACM, Vol. 13, Issue 1
Fluid flow through rock joints: The effect of surface roughness
journal, January 1987
- Brown, Stephen R.
- Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 92, Issue B2
Advanced Wells: A Comprehensive Approach to the Selection Between Passive and Active Inflow-Control Completions
journal, August 2010
- Al-Khelaiwi, Faisal T.; Birchenko, Vasily M.; Konopczynski, Michael R.
- SPE Production & Operations, Vol. 25, Issue 03
Aperture of rough cracks
journal, March 1995
- Plouraboué, Franck; Kurowski, Pascal; Hulin, Jean-Pierre
- Physical Review E, Vol. 51, Issue 3
Numerical study of geometrical dispersion in self-affine rough fractures
journal, September 1998
- Plouraboué, Franck; Hulin, Jean-Pierre; Roux, Stéphane
- Physical Review E, Vol. 58, Issue 3
Thermal–hydrologic–mechanical–chemical processes in the evolution of engineered geothermal reservoirs
journal, July 2009
- Taron, Joshua; Elsworth, Derek
- International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, Vol. 46, Issue 5
Hybrid analytical and finite element numerical modeling of mass and heat transport in fractured rocks with matrix diffusion
journal, December 2008
- McDermott, Christopher I.; Walsh, Robert; Mettier, Ralph
- Computational Geosciences, Vol. 13, Issue 3
Remark on algorithm 368: Numerical inversion of Laplace transforms
journal, October 1970
- Stehfest, Harald
- Communications of the ACM, Vol. 13, Issue 10
Aperture measurements and flow experiments on a single natural fracture
journal, June 1996
- Hakami, Eva; Larsson, Erik
- International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences & Geomechanics Abstracts, Vol. 33, Issue 4
Relating flow channelling to tracer dispersion in heterogeneous networks
journal, August 2004
- Bruderer-Weng, Céline; Cowie, Patience; Bernabé, Yves
- Advances in Water Resources, Vol. 27, Issue 8
Correlation between the surfaces of natural rock joints
journal, December 1986
- Brown, Stephen R.; Kranz, Robert L.; Bonner, Brian P.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 13, Issue 13
A Fast Algorithm for Particle Simulations
journal, August 1997
- Greengard, L.; Rokhlin, V.
- Journal of Computational Physics, Vol. 135, Issue 2
Flow channeling in a single fracture as a two-dimensional strongly heterogeneous permeable medium
journal, September 1989
- Tsang, Y. W.; Tsang, C. F.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 25, Issue 9
Scale Effects Related to Flow in Rough Fractures
journal, May 2003
- Méheust, Y.; Schmittbuhl, J.
- Pure and Applied Geophysics, Vol. 160, Issue 5
Transport in rough self-affine fractures
journal, August 2002
- Drazer, German; Koplik, Joel
- Physical Review E, Vol. 66, Issue 2
Modelling the heat extraction from the rosemanowes hdr reservoir
journal, January 1990
- Nicol, David A. C.; Robinson, Bruce A.
- Geothermics, Vol. 19, Issue 3
Fractional Brownian Motions, Fractional Noises and Applications
journal, October 1968
- Mandelbrot, Benoit B.; Van Ness, John W.
- SIAM Review, Vol. 10, Issue 4
Experimental study of the transport properties of rough self-affine fractures
journal, December 2000
- Plouraboué, Franck; Kurowski, Pascal; Boffa, Jean-Marc
- Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 46, Issue 3-4
Economic evaluation of geothermal reservoir performance through modeling the complexity of the operating EGS in Soultz-sous-Forêts
journal, July 2014
- Held, Sebastian; Genter, Albert; Kohl, Thomas
- Geothermics, Vol. 51
Modelling storage behaviour in a fractured rock mass
journal, November 1994
- Bruel, D.; Cacas, M. C.; Ledoux, E.
- Journal of Hydrology, Vol. 162, Issue 3-4