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Characterizing Reservoir Thermal Behavior Using Dimensionless Variables
D.D. FAULDER, Afrah SIDDIQUE, and Aileen ZEBROWSKI
[Ryder Scott, USA]
A careful review of the analytic methods of Gringarten, Doe, and Shook show that each of them expressed the thermal recovery of an idealized geothermal system in terms of dimensionless time and dimensionless temperature decline. Since all three authors used slightly different spatial coordinate systems for their mathematical framework, they are restated here on the same coordinate system for utility. Doe presented a figure comparing the numerical performance of a geothermal doublet system in a complex discrete fracture network (DFN) against the idealized Gringarten analytical solutions for dimensionless time and dimensionless temperature decline at different fracture spacing. The question arises, can these results be applied to real field data? The field history of Roosevelt Hot Springs, with over 40 years of production history, and several other Basin and Range geothermal fields are reviewed. The production responses for these fields are evaluated using these dimensionless analytical methods to compare the idealized and DFN cases to real field scenarios. Observations and conclusions are discussed.
Topic: Reservoir Engineering