Fractured Geothermal Reservoirs Research Articles

Numerical simulation of geothermal reservoir thermal recovery of heterogeneous discrete fracture network-rock matrix system

In contrast to previous methodologies utilizing smooth fractures for predicting production in fractured geothermal reservoirs, this study introduces a novel approach employing a non-uniform rough discrete fracture network model characterized by heterogeneous apertures. Partial differential equations governing dual porosity flow and heat transfer are formulated, followed by a multi-physical field coupling simulation for the reservoir-scale formation model. The investigation focuses on the 50-year production performance of an enhanced geothermal system (EGS) under various parameters. Findings indicate a 15 % increase in production temperature with a 10-degree rise in injection temperature and a 10 % increase when well spacing is halved. Conversely, doubling the injection velocity or increasing the fracture aperture from 2 mm to 5 mm results in a 20 % and 25 % decrease in production temperature, respectively. These results highlight the negative impacts of faster fluid movement and larger fracture apertures on thermal retention. Conventional smooth fracture networks tend to underestimate both production temperature and the operational lifespan of EGS. An effective flow rate is defined, and an empirical prediction model for thermal recovery is established. This study provides valuable insights into the interplay of parameters affecting EGS production performance, serving as a pertinent reference for analyzing the influence of heterogeneous apertures on geothermal reservoirs.

Modelling of water injection-induced shear stimulation and heat extraction in hot fractured reservoirs

Hydroshearing has been proposed as an effective technique for enhancing the permeability of fractured geothermal reservoirs. This approach involves complicated thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupling, but the shear behaviour and its effect on flow and heat transfer are often simplified. In this study, Barton–Bandis (BB) joint behaviour is extended to include nonlinear rock joint deformation, shear dilation and post peak softening and healing behaviours. Two models of field-scale fractured geothermal reservoirs are considered. In addition, the widely used Mohr-Coulomb (MC) model is also incorporated into the THM coupled model for comparison. The results show that cold water injection-induced high-temperature rock contraction and fluid pressure increase, reducing the effective stress and promoting fracture shear deformation and irreversible slip. Moreover, shear dilation, shear softening, and nonlinear fracture opening notably alter reservoir permeability. The two models exhibit entirely different behaviours due to different pathway evolutions and consequent pressure build-up. The BB model displays a larger shear disturbance zone than the MC model, significantly enhancing the permeability and heat extraction within the fractured reservoirs. Accurate descriptions of the mechanical behaviour of rock fractures in hydroshearing models are crucial, suggesting the potential of these models to enhance fractured reservoirs and regulate fracturing for improved geothermal heat extraction.

Deep learning-based inversion framework by assimilating hydrogeological and geophysical data for an enhanced geothermal system characterization and thermal performance prediction

Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), which are developed by creating artificial fractures to enhance the permeability of deep reservoir, show their its advantage in power generation. However, due to the limited wells in deep depth, characterizing fractured geothermal reservoirs with sparse data is difficult and poses challenges for long-term thermal performance prediction. Interpreting observation data through inversion to characterize the fracture aperture and predict EGS long-term thermal performance is a hopeful scheme. Thus, a joint inversion framework, convolutional variational autoencoder-ensemble smoother with multiple data assimilation (CVAE-ESMDA), is proposed with the following aspects: (i) CVAE is trained to parameterize the high-dimensional Non-Gaussian aperture field, (ii) ESMDA is applied to integrate hydrogeological and geophysical data for aperture characterization. Based on the inversion results, the long-term performance is predicted. The normalized root mean square errors (NRMSEs) of inversion results decrease from 27.66 % to 24.52 % after multi-type data are integrated for CVAE-ESMDA. Furthermore, the NRMSEs of long-term thermal prediction of two production wells also decrease to only 2.3 % and 8.2 %. To further exhibit the advantages of CVAE-ESMDA, another joint inversion framework, principal component analysis (PCA)-ESMDA, is also compared. However, PCA is limited in addressing Non-Gaussian aperture field and its long-term thermal prediction performance is unsatisfactory.

Quantifying flow regime impacts on hydrodynamic heat transfer in rough-walled rock fractures

Hydrodynamic heat transfer in rock fractures is crucial for many geophysical processes and engineering activities, notably in harnessing geothermal energy. Despite extensive research, characterizing hydrodynamic heat transfer in rock fractures, complicated by their geometric heterogeneity, remains a formidable challenge. To address this challenge, we experimentally investigated the hydrodynamic heat transfer in rock fractures with diverse geometric features at steady-state elevated temperatures. We found that both heterogeneous fracture geometry and elevated temperatures promote the transition of fracture flow from a linear to nonlinear regime. This flow regime transition enhances the heterogeneity of heat transfer intensity within the fracture and exacerbates the increase in heat transfer efficiency with flow rate. At a fortyfold increase in flow rate, the heat transfer coefficient in the most heterogeneous fracture rises by approximately 72 times, compared to about 28 times in the least heterogeneous one. Leveraging experimental data, we developed parametric models linking heat transfer coefficients, outflow temperature, and heat recovery rate to flow rate and geometric features, yielding a theoretical formulation for the maximal heat recovery rate. By introducing the concept of an energy conversion rate, we quantitatively evaluated the effect of nonlinear flow resistance on heat extraction feasibility, revealing that energy conversion rates in highly heterogeneous fractures can be up to 452 times lower than in less heterogeneous ones. This highlights the pivotal role of flow resistance in heat extraction feasibility. Our findings are instrumental for understanding and predicting the hydrodynamic heat transfer within fractured geothermal reservoirs and analogous hydro-thermal systems.

Analysis of fractures generated by faults at micro- and macro-scale and the influence on the secondary permeability: application to the Nevado del Ruiz area (Colombia)

This research contributes to the knowledge of the geothermal area of the Nevado del Ruiz Volcano (Colombia) by analyzing the secondary permeability and connectivity of fractures at microstructural and macrostructural level. Although the Nevado del Ruiz Volcano (NRV) area has had geothermal exploration studies for power generation since 1968, there is still no exploitation of its geothermal resources. The NRV geothermal reservoir is characterized by a low primary permeability and the presence of several geological faults crossing a tectonically active and complex region. The analysis was performed comparing a zone affected by intense faulting with another one characterized by the same lithology, but with less influence of faulting and located further from the volcano. Fractures were characterized at outcrops with the window sampling method, and petrographic analysis was performed to confirm the mineralogy of samples collected. At the microstructural scale it was found that faulting does not necessarily influence the interconnectivity of fractures, but it does influence their intensity, quantity, and strike. To analyze the influence of fractures on groundwater flow, it is suggested to consider three main aspects: secondary permeability, connectivity, and fracture intensity. The lithology of major geothermal interest in the NVR area (Pes) presented greater connectivity and fracture intensity, which, combined with the high foliation observed in field, increase its effective permeability. The secondary permeability of different lithologies in the NRV area ranged between 1.15 × 10–6 and 10.32 × 10–7 m2. Most of the hot springs were in areas of high macrostructural connectivity, supporting the idea that groundwater flow is dominated by the secondary permeability of rocks. Estimation of the secondary permeability and identification of areas of high fracturing and connectivity, contributes to the understanding of the NRV geothermal area, which is a key aspect when drilling for successful well production. The methodology presented is useful in the initial exploration phase in fractured geothermal reservoirs.

Numerical modeling of temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracer for fractured geothermal reservoir characterization

Information on the temperature distribution of subsurface reservoirs is essential for geothermal energy development. One of the promising tools to detect the reservoir temperature distribution is temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracers whose functionality has been extensively investigated in both theoretical and experimental ways in the last decade. However, most related studies were limited to simplified geometries and ignored the dynamic interplays of fluid flow, heat transfer, transport and reaction of the temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracer. The response behavior and working mechanisms of such nanotracers in a realistic three-dimensional system still have not been fully revealed through a systematic study. In this work, we develop a numerical modeling approach to simulate field implementation of these nanotracers in a fractured geothermal reservoir. This study aims to evaluate whether the injection of multiple temperature-reporting nanoparticle tracers with different thresholds can be used to estimate the temperature distribution and provide information on the thermal and geological heterogeneities. Several scenarios have been investigated for the geothermal reservoir including homogeneous and non-homogeneous cases (e.g., thermal and geological heterogeneities). Our obtained results from the nanotracer breakthrough curves show that the deviation temperatures in peak concentration values provide an upper limit of the lowest temperature and precise highest temperature for the reservoir temperature range. The deviation temperature of the peak arrival time curve accurately estimates the highest temperature along the main streamlines between the wells. The proposed analysis curves based on the nanotracer breakthrough data were visibly affected by geological heterogeneities including their conductivities and orientations as well as thermal heterogeneities in the geothermal reservoir.

Prediction of thermal front movement in geothermal reservoirs containing distributed natural fractures

When designing a reinjection scheme for geothermal development, one needs to predict the flow and thermal behavior between the recharge and discharge wells. Premature thermal front breakthrough is of great concern and is often observed in real fields. However, prediction methods based on homogeneous media are prone to overly optimistic estimates. In this study, geothermal reservoirs with vertical fractures which are discretely distributed in the permeable rock are considered, and the streamline simulation is developed and applied to evaluate the thermal front movement, represented by the characteristic times tD*. With 1000 simulation results for stochastically generated natural fracture systems, regression models are developed for the expected values of tD* with minimal information requirements on fracture parameters. In general, the fracture orientation θf has a stronger negative correlation with tD* than the total fracture length Σf. The intensity of natural fractures has opposing effects (delay or advance) on tD* depending on θf, and taking this effect into account improves the quality of the regression model. In addition, when the pressure difference between the doublet wells is available, the model accuracy is further improved by incorporating pressure data into the regression. The prediction models are of practical use for understanding the thermal behavior and designing a reinjection scheme in fractured geothermal reservoirs.

Optimizing geothermal reservoir modeling: A unified bayesian PSO and BiGRU approach for precise history matching under uncertainty

This research focuses on optimizing geothermal reservoir modeling tackling issues related to non-uniqueness, subsurface uncertainties, and computational intensity. The proposed workflow integrates Bayesian Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and a Bidirectional Gated Recurrent Unit (BiGRU) network to enhance the efficiency of history matching in the context of geothermal resource development under uncertainties. The methodology involves four key steps: firstly, identifying crucial uncertainty parameters such as injection rates and reservoir temperature; secondly, constructing the BiGRU network to capture the nonlinear relationship between these parameters and time series outputs, with Bayesian PSO automating hyper-parameter tuning; thirdly, using Bayesian PSO for the inversion of uncertainty parameters, utilizing the BiGRU as a forward model to reduce computational costs; and finally, conducting a thorough analysis and refinement of errors in predicted responses between the high fidelity model and Bayesian PSO, ensuring the accuracy of the history-matching process. Validation using a 3D fractured geothermal reservoir scenario demonstrates the Bayesian PSO and BiGRU method's efficacy in inverting uncertainty parameters with narrow uncertainties. The Obtained results are compare the performance of predicting the recovery factor (RF) using different surrogate methods, including Gaussian Processes (GP), Radial Basis Function (RBF), and Random Forest Regression (RFR). The proposed Bayesian PSO and GRU-based history-matching approach proves highly accurate and robust for efficiently addressing significant uncertainties in geothermal extraction processes.

Enhancing reservoir stimulation and heat extraction performance for fractured geothermal reservoirs: Utilization of novel multilateral wells

Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) is a promising approach to improve the production efficiency of deep geothermal energy (e.g. hot dry rock). However, it faces with significant unsolved challenges to create connected fracture networks between injection-production wells, maintain high flow rates and obtain sufficient thermal power in EGSs. To address these challenges, we propose a novel multilateral-well EGS method for improving the performance of both reservoir stimulation and heat extraction from hot dry rock. In this contribution, we construct an integrated numerical model to simulate the processes of complex fracture propagation and thermal heat production as a whole. This model fully couples fluid flow, heat transfer, rock deformation and fracture propagation, taking into account the generation of new fractures, reactivation of pre-existing fractures, and mechanical interaction between hydraulic and natural fractures. The reliability of the integrated model is well verified with the analytical solution and experimental data. Subsequently, the damage and temperature fields as well as the resulting heat extraction performance of the multilateral-well EGS and conventional vertical-well EGS are compared. The results indicate that the stimulated reservoir permeability and connectivity, extracted thermal power under the configuration of multilateral-well EGS are much higher (about an order of magnitude) than those under the scheme of vertical-well EGS. This study presents a promising alternative for EGS to achieve enhanced reservoir stimulation and heat extraction performance.

Impact of well placement and flow rate on production efficiency and stress field in the fractured geothermal reservoirs

AbstractGeothermal energy has gained wide attention as a renewable alternative for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. The advancements in enhanced geothermal system technology have enabled the exploitation of previously inaccessible geothermal resources. However, the extraction of geothermal energy from deep reservoirs poses many challenges due to high‐temperature and high‐geostress conditions. These factors can significantly impact the surrounding rock and its fracture formation. A comprehensive understanding of the thermal–hydraulic–mechanical (THM) coupling effect is crucial to the safe and efficient exploitation of geothermal resources. This study presented a THM coupling numerical model for the geothermal reservoir of the Yangbajing geothermal system. This proposed model investigated the geothermal exploitation performance and the stress distribution within the reservoir under various combinations of geothermal wells and mass flow rates. The geothermal system performance was evaluated by the criteria of outlet temperature and geothermal productivity. The results indicate that the longer distance between wells can increase the outlet temperature of production wells and improve extraction efficiency in the short term. In contrast, the shorter distance between wells can reduce the heat exchange area and thus mitigate the impact on the reservoir stress. A larger mass flow rate is conducive to the production capacity enhancement of the geothermal system and, in turn causes a wider range of stress disturbance. These findings provide valuable insights into the optimization of geothermal energy extraction while considering reservoir safety and long‐term sustainability. This study deepens the understanding of the THM coupling effects in geothermal systems and provides an efficient and environmentally friendly strategy for a geothermal energy system.

Comprehensive assessment of four volcano-hosted geothermal fields with relation to tectonics and faults in El Salvador

Geothermal systems have noteworthy prospects for replacing the reliance on fossil fuels. El Salvador, located in a tectonically active region, supplies 25 percent of the annual electricity demand from two hosted volcanic geothermal fields. This contribution may be increased by up to 40 percent by developing two additional explored geothermal areas. Although El Salvador has a high potential for geothermal energy, studies have yet to be conducted to explore the characteristics and differences of the current geothermal fields. This study summarizes current information on the leading explored geothermal areas in El Salvador. We compared the features of the four most studied geothermal areas using regional and local tectonics, representative drilled-well lithology, hydrothermal alterations, and the resistivity structure along the magnetotelluric profile. Our results show that regional tectonics and local fault systems mainly control the characteristics of the geothermal reservoirs in El Salvador. The likelihood of identifying fractured geothermal reservoirs increases significantly in areas where the local fault system differs from the El Salvador Fault Zone (ESFZ) trend. Fractured areas adjacent to volcanic structures with substantial meteoric water recharge are highly effective geothermal energy sources. Our study enhances the understanding and exploration of the geothermal resources of El Salvador.

Coupled THMC modeling on chemical stimulation in fractured geothermal reservoirs

Chemical stimulation, as a soft stimulation method, has been increasingly used in carbonatite geothermal reservoirs, but selecting and designing an optimal scheme of chemical stimulation is still challenging due to lack of robust and reasonable modeling tools. In this study the coupled thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) modeling framework is further developed to simulate chemical stimulation process in carbonatite geothermal reservoirs containing a system of intersecting fractures by considering the nonlinear constitutive models of rock fractures, which reflect the changes in fracture aperture mediated by chemical and mechanical processes. Based on a pilot field test of multi-stage alternate hydraulic and chemical stimulations in the geothermal well D22, Xiong'an New Area, China, the developed modeling framework is verified. The results showed that multi-stage alternate hydraulic and chemical stimulations can efficiently stimulate the carbonatite geothermal reservoirs of low permeability. In addition, a robust optimization approach is proposed to determine the proper human-controlled parameters in chemical stimulation including acid concentration, injection rate and total volume of acid solution.

Heat Production Performance from an Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) Using CO2 as the Working Fluid

CO2-based enhanced geothermal systems (CO2-EGS) are greatly attractive in geothermal energy production due to their high flow rates and the additional benefit of CO2 geological storage. In this work, a CO2-EGS model is built based on the available geological data in the Gonghe Basin, Northwest China. In our model, the wellbore flow is considered and coupled with a geothermal reservoir to better simulate the complex CO2 flow and heat production behavior. Based on the fractured geothermal reservoir at depths between 2900 m and 3300 m, the long-term (30-year) heat production performance is predicted using CO2 as the working fluid with fixed wellhead pressure. The results indicate that the proposed CO2-EGS will obtain an ascending heat extraction rate in the first 9 years, followed by a slight decrease in the following 21 years. Due to the significant natural convection of CO2 (e.g., low viscosity and density) in the geothermal reservoir, the mass production rate of the CO2-EGS will reach 150 kg/s. The heat extraction rates will be greater than 32 MW throughout the 30-year production period, showing a significant production performance. However, the Joule–Thomson effect in the wellbore will result in a drastic decrease in production temperature (e.g., a 62.6 °C decrease in the production well). This means that the pre-optimization analyses and physical material treatments are required during geothermal production using CO2 as the working fluid.

Permeability evolution due to combined thermal stress and in-situ stress during fractured geothermal reservoir production

Understanding the process of fluid circulation within fractures is crucial for the utilization of geothermal energy. However, accurately predicting the evolution of heat transfer performance remains challenging due to the complex physical mechanism behind the injection-withdraw fluid balance and poor understanding of thermal transient cooling in changing the stress state of fracture and followed aperture evolution. This study used the coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical simulator FLAC3D-TOUGHREACT to investigate the evolution of fracture permeability in a fractured geothermal reservoir under a variety of initial stress conditions. Results show that the produced thermal stress increases the fracture permeability first, but when the heat influence disappears, the permeability starts to decrease. Fractures that are oriented sub-parallel to the minimal principal stress have a greater slip potential, dilate, and increase permeability than other fracture types. Lower differential stress allows for significantly more stress alleviation, and the shear stress is greater which promotes the development of fracture shear failure. With a constant stress ratio of 0.65, the higher mean stress case showed a greater extent of stress reduction and shear stress build-up, which allows permeability and porosity to increase. The findings revealed that the combination of thermal stress and in-situ stress state plays a critical role in determining the evolution of fracture permeability during the fracture process.

Fracture propagation laws of staged hydraulic fracture in fractured geothermal reservoir based on phase field model

Hydraulic fracturing is widely used in geothermal resource exploitation, and many natural fractures exist in hot dry rock reservoirs due to in-situ stress and faults. However, the influence of natural fractures on hydraulic fracture propagation is not considered in the current study. In this paper, based on the phase field model, a thermo-hydro-mechanical coupled hydraulic fracture propagation model was established to reveal the influence of injection time, fracturing method, injection flow rate, and natural fracture distribution on the fracture propagation mechanism. The results show that fracture complexity increases with an increase in injection time. The stress disturbance causes the fracture initiation pressure of the second cluster significantly higher than that of the first and third clusters. The zipper-type fracturing method can reduce the degree of stress disturbance and increase fracture complexity by 7.2% compared to simultaneous hydraulic fracturing. Both low and high injection flow rate lead to a decrease in fracture propagation time, which is not conducive to an increase in fracture complexity. An increase in the natural fracture angle leads to hydraulic fracture crossing natural fracture, but has a lesser effect on fracture complexity. In this paper, we analyzed the influence of different factors on initiation pressure and fracture complexity, providing valuable guidance for the exploitation of geothermal resources.

Reactive Transport Modeling of Chemical Stimulation Processes for an Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS)

An enhanced geothermal system is a kind of artificial geothermal system, which can economically exploit geothermal energy from deep thermal rock mass with low permeability by artificially created geothermal reservoirs. Chemical stimulation refers to a reservoir permeability enhancement method that injects a chemical stimulant into the fractured geothermal reservoir to improve the formation permeability by dissolving minerals. In this study, a reactive solute transport model was established based on TOUGHREACT to find out the effect of chemical stimulation on the reconstruction of a granite-hosted enhanced geothermal system reservoir. The results show that chemical stimulation with mud acid as a stimulant can effectively improve the permeability of fractures near the injection well, the effective penetration distance can reach more than 20 m after 5 days. The improvement of porosity and permeability was mainly caused by the dissolution of feldspar and chlorite. The permeability enhancement increased with the injection flow rate and HF concentration in the stimulant, which was weakly affected by the change in injection temperature. The method of chemical enhancement processes can provide a reference for subsequent enhanced geothermal system engineering designs.

Modelling of flow through naturally fractured geothermal reservoirs, Taupō Volcanic Zone, New Zealand

BackgroundNumerous fractures are observed in fractured geothermal reservoirs on borehole images in the Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ), Aotearoa New Zealand. These fractures are necessary to explain the sustained reservoir permeabilities despite the low matrix porosity. However, conventional continuum models do not adequately represent fluid flow through these fractured rocks.MethodsWe present new Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) codes that model fractures and associated fluid flow in 2-D at reservoir scales to represent typical rock types found in TVZ reservoirs. Input parameters are derived from interpretations of borehole images at the Rotokawa and Wairakei geothermal fields where fractures have high dip magnitudes (> 60–70°). This paper focuses on the effect of fracture density along virtual boreholes (P10), that is in average 0.6 m−1 in sheet-like andesites; 0.8 m−1 in ignimbrites and 1.7 m−1 in rhyolite lavas.ResultsThe number of fractures in the models scale linearly with the input P10 in virtual boreholes. The percolation threshold, where the backbone of fractures is connected across the entire model domain, is reached for P10 > 0.24 m−1. Above this threshold, mean flow measured along the mean fracture direction scales linearly with P10. For P10 > 0.4 m−1 the permeability anisotropy lies in the interval 13 ± 3, with the scatter decreasing as P10 increases. The pressure distributions in individual DFN realisations are highly variable, but averages of 50 realisations converge towards those given by equivalent continuum models. Probability density functions resulting from DFN realisations can therefore be used to constrain continuum models. Tracing of fluid particles through the DFN shows that particles can take numerous pathways to define a swath of paths. The travel time of particles over 1 km follows a distribution similar to real tracer tests, with arrivals peaking at 1–2 days and a long tail stretching to over 200 days.ConclusionsThe new codes, calibrated to real measurements of fracture geometries in borehole images of the TVZ, reproduce patterns of flows in fractured geothermal systems. Mean flows and permeability anisotropies derived from the DFNs can be used to improve modelling of flows through fractured geothermal reservoirs using continuum models at a limited computational cost.

Seismic signatures of partial steam saturation in fractured geothermal reservoirs: Insights from poroelasticity

Detecting the presence of gaseous formation fluids, estimating the respective volumes, and characterizing their spatial distribution are important for a wide range of applications, notably for geothermal energy production. The ability to obtain such information from remote geophysical measurements constitutes a fundamental challenge, which needs to be overcome to address a wide range of problems, such as the estimation of the reservoir temperature and pressure conditions. With these motivations, we compute the body wave velocities of a fractured granitic geothermal reservoir formation with varying quantities of steam to analyze the seismic signatures in a partial saturation context. We use a poroelastic upscaling approach that accounts for mesoscale fluid pressure diffusion (FPD) effects induced by the seismic strain field, and, thus, describes the governing physical processes more accurately than standard representations. Changes in seismic velocities due to steam saturation are compared with changes associated with fracture density variations, as both are plausible results of pressure changes in geothermal reservoirs. We find that steam saturation has a significant impact on P-wave velocities while affecting S-wave velocities to a significantly lesser extent. This contrasting behavior allows us to discriminate between fracture density and steam saturation changes by means of P- and S-wave velocity ratio analyses. To evaluate the potential of seismic methods to provide this information, a canonical geothermal reservoir model is used to compute the Rayleigh wave velocity dispersion and seismic reflection amplitude variation with angle (AVA) curves. These studies reveal that AVA analyses allow differentiating changes in fracture density from changes in steam saturation. We also note that the Rayleigh-wave-based techniques are much less sensitive to steam content changes than to fracture density changes. Comparisons with elastic approaches indicate that including FPD effects through the use of a poroelastic model is crucial for the reliable detection and characterization of steam in fractured geothermal reservoirs.

Numerical simulation of fracture propagation and production performance in a fractured geothermal reservoir using a 2D FEM-based THMD coupling model

Numerical simulation of fracture propagation and production performance in a fractured geothermal reservoir using a 2D FEM-based THMD coupling model

Heat extraction performance of fractured geothermal reservoirs considering aperture variability

It is still a challenging task to explain the uncertainty of the production of fractured geothermal reservoirs by using a parallel plate model without considering the variable aperture. Hence, we incorporated a heterogeneous aperture field with contact obstacles into a discrete fracture network (DFN) with different connection paths and densities and executed a medium-scale fluid flow and heat transfer simulation. The results show that severe flow channelization occurs in fracture systems with variable apertures, and the effective flow area is less than 40%. The increase in correlation length and contact obstacles leads to a decrease in the flow rate. The flow topology network reveals the reselection of dominant flow channels in the DFN. The effective flow intensity is independent of the fracture density and connection path length but has a negative correlation with the correlation length. The production temperature and cumulative heat energy production of the DFN model show a linear relationship with the correlation length. Finally, the strong correlation between cumulative heat production and the effective flow area emphasizes the critical role of flow channelization in the heat extraction of complex fracture systems. This study provides useful help for understanding how the micro heterogeneous aperture impacts macro production.