Simulating thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical evolution surrounding fluid injection in a fractured porous geothermal reservoir

© 2006: American Geophysical UnionComputational analysis is conducted on the coupled thermal-hydrologic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) behavior of a stimulated EGS geothermal reservoir. Numerical analyses utilize a newly developed simulator capable of examining THMC processes in fractured porous geologic media. The simulator links the thermal-hydrologic- chemical (THC) computational code TOUGHREACT with the mechanical (M) capability of FLAC3D, where the response of pore fluid pressure to mechanical disturbance is treated as an undrained system and mineral precipitation/dissolution generates porosity and permeability change within each dual-permeability continuum. Non-linear permeability response to thermal-hydrologic-mechanical (THM) mechanisms is accommodated via embryonic mechanical and transport constitutive laws, and is considered to act in union with permeability changes associated with the removal or addition of minerals within the system. This construct is applied to the geometry of an injector-withdrawal doublet within the Coso Geothermal field, where in situ stress conditions, thermal state, and mineralogical composition at 3000m depth are extracted from recorded field data. Initial results for feasible parametric settings show that permeability reduction in the vicinity of a cool (80°C) injection well may be significant, within an order of magnitude, and accompanied by large (MPa) changes in the stress field throughout the reservoir for imposed boundary conditions of constant stress.Taron, J., Min, K. and Elsworth, D