Rapid Fluid Flow Experiments in Desert Peak Quartz Monzonite
- Key words
- Enhanced Geothermal Systems
- Conference
- Geothermal Resources Council Transactions
- Year
- 2006
- Session
- HDR/EGS
- Language
- English
Abstract
Fracture flow experiments are being conducted on artificially fractured cylinders of quartz monzonite from the Desert Peak East EGS site in Churchill County, Nevada. Starting conditions are temperature of 180°C and 5.7 MPa confining pressure. The injection fluid, de-ionized water, is forced through the fracture at rates of 20 or 30 mL/min. Fluid temperatures, measured in the inlet and outlet endcaps show temperature drops on the order of 100°C. A finite element code is used to model the temperature distribution in the specimen. Preliminary experiments show an increase in effective hydraulic aperture based on permeability measurements made before and after the rapid flow tests.
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