USING ABAQUS TO SIMULATE THE TRIAXIAL STRESS STRAIN BEHAVIOR OF CORE SAMPLES FROM THE WAIRAKEI/TAUHARA GEOTHERMAL FIELD

J. Pogacnik, W. Koros, J. O`Sullivan, M. Pender, M. O`Sullivan, C. Bromley.

Key words: Wairakei subsidence, Cam-clay model, finite element method, triaxial testing
Conference: New Zealand Geothermal Workshop
Year: 2015
Session: Session 7B: Reservoir Engineering/Modelling
Language: English
Paper number: 149

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Abstract

The Wairakei geothermal field in New Zealand has experienced
a significant amount of production related subsidence in the last
50 years. Therefore, the region has been subject to a significant
amount of data collection and rock characterization work.
However, the rock properties associated with mechanical deformation
are often overly simplified in numerical simulations of
subsidence. We seek to calibrate an advanced elastic-plastic constitutive
relationship (Modified Cam-clay) to rock data from K0
triaxial tests on core samples from geotechnical reports of the
field. We do this by setting up radially symmetric finite element
simulations using the software ABAQUS to closely match the
triaxial laboratory tests. The parameterized Cam-clay models
will be applied as future work in our development of a more realistic
numerical subsidence model of the Wairakei geothermal
field.

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