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Applications for Deep Geothermal Engineering

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Modelling Rock Fracturing Processes

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Abstract

There is mounting interest in developing deep geothermal energy because of its abundant potential as the base-load renewable energy source. Numerical modelling has been widely used to advance the fundamentals towards addressing the grand challenges ahead for efficient and sustainable development of geothermal energy. In this chapter, we first provided a review of state of the art of numerical modelling related to the dynamics of geothermal reservoirs and the stimulation of reservoirs to increase the performance of enhanced geothermal system (EGS). We then presented two modelling applications concerning convective heat transfer through a single fracture and borehole breakout at geothermal wells. The heat transfer characteristics of water flowing through a single fracture within a cylindrical granite specimen was investigated by integrating the experiment and the simulation. The breakout geometry was modeled to estimate the in situ stress at the geothermal sites in Cooper Basin, Australia, and Pohang, South Korea.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the New and Renewable Energy Technology Development Program of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP) through a grant funded by the Korean Government’s Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (No. 20123010110010).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Energy Resources Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

    Linmao Xie & Ki-Bok Min

  2. Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IRSM-CAS), Wuhan, China

    Bing Bai

  3. CSIRO Mineral Resources, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Baotang Shen

  4. Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao, China

    Baotang Shen

  5. Section 4.8 Geoenergy, German Research Center for Geosciences GFZ, Potsdam, Germany

    Günter Zimmermann

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  1. Linmao Xie
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  2. Bing Bai
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  3. Baotang Shen
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  4. Günter Zimmermann
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  5. Ki-Bok Min
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Correspondence to Ki-Bok Min .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. CSIRO Mineral Resources, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Baotang Shen

  2. GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany

    Ove Stephansson

  3. School of Engineering, Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Espoo, Finland

    Mikael Rinne

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Xie, L., Bai, B., Shen, B., Zimmermann, G., Min, KB. (2020). Applications for Deep Geothermal Engineering. In: Shen, B., Stephansson, O., Rinne, M. (eds) Modelling Rock Fracturing Processes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35525-8_13

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