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Gravitational Stability of the Interface in Water Over Steam Geothermal Reservoirs

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Abstract

Stability of a geothermal system is considered in a case when the water layer lies over the layer of superheated vapor in a stratum having relatively low permeability. This stratum locates between two parallel high permeable layers. Under the assumption of smallness of advective energy transfer as compared with the conductive one, the stationary distribution of the characteristics in the stratum with an interface of phase transition is obtained. The interface separates the domains occupied by water and vapor. Investigation of normal stability of the interface shows, that stable configurations in the geothermal system under consideration exist within the range of permeability values bounded by k ∼ 0.6 × 10−15 m2 from above. The most unstable configurations occur to be the quiescent states when the permeability exceeds a certain threshold. A sufficiently high value of permeability, satisfying the criterion of smallness of the advective energy transfer as compared with the conductive one makes it possible to explain the existence of a wide class of stable natural geothermal reservoirs, where the vapor layer underlies the water one.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Problems in Mechanics, RAS, Av. Vernadskogo 101, 119420, Moscow, Russia

    George Tsypkin

  2. Steklov Mathematical Institute, RAS, Gubkina Str. 8, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    Andrej Il’ichev

Authors
  1. George Tsypkin
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  2. Andrej Il’ichev
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Tsypkin, G., Il’ichev, A. Gravitational Stability of the Interface in Water Over Steam Geothermal Reservoirs. Transport in Porous Media 55, 183–199 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:TIPM.0000010693.67852.eb

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:TIPM.0000010693.67852.eb

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