TY - JOUR
T1 - An efficient numerical simulator for geothermal simulation
T2 - A benchmark study
AU - Wang, Yang
AU - Voskov, Denis
AU - Khait, Mark
AU - Bruhn, David
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Accurate prediction of temperature and pressure distribution is essential for geothermal reservoir exploitation with cold water re-injection. Depending on our knowledge about the heterogeneous structure of the subsurface, the reservoir development scheme can be optimized and the overall lifetime of the geothermal field can be extended. In this study, we present Delft Advanced Research Terra Simulator (DARTS), which provides fast and accurate energy production evaluation for geothermal applications. This simulation framework is suitable for uncertainty analysis with a large ensemble of models. In DARTS, we select the molar formulation with pressure and enthalpy as primary variables. Besides, the fully-coupled fully-implicit two-point flux approximation on unstructured grids is implemented to solve the mass and energy conservation equations. For the nonlinear solution, we employ the recently developed Operator-Based Linearization (OBL) approach. In our work, DARTS is compared with the state-of-the-art simulation frameworks using a set of benchmark tests. We demonstrate that DARTS achieves a good match for both low- and high-enthalpy conditions in comparison to other simulators. At the same time, DARTS provides high performance and flexibility of the code due to the OBL approach, which makes it particularly useful for uncertainty quantification in processes involving complex physics.
AB - Accurate prediction of temperature and pressure distribution is essential for geothermal reservoir exploitation with cold water re-injection. Depending on our knowledge about the heterogeneous structure of the subsurface, the reservoir development scheme can be optimized and the overall lifetime of the geothermal field can be extended. In this study, we present Delft Advanced Research Terra Simulator (DARTS), which provides fast and accurate energy production evaluation for geothermal applications. This simulation framework is suitable for uncertainty analysis with a large ensemble of models. In DARTS, we select the molar formulation with pressure and enthalpy as primary variables. Besides, the fully-coupled fully-implicit two-point flux approximation on unstructured grids is implemented to solve the mass and energy conservation equations. For the nonlinear solution, we employ the recently developed Operator-Based Linearization (OBL) approach. In our work, DARTS is compared with the state-of-the-art simulation frameworks using a set of benchmark tests. We demonstrate that DARTS achieves a good match for both low- and high-enthalpy conditions in comparison to other simulators. At the same time, DARTS provides high performance and flexibility of the code due to the OBL approach, which makes it particularly useful for uncertainty quantification in processes involving complex physics.
KW - Benchmark test
KW - Geothermal simulation
KW - Operator-based linearization
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85080027157&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.114693
DO - 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.114693
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85080027157
SN - 0306-2619
VL - 264
JO - Applied Energy
JF - Applied Energy
M1 - 114693
ER -