This paper is a report of an initial attempt to conduct laboratory-size, in experimental geothermal reservoir modeling. The method is based on the basic physical understanding of a mathematical model of a reservoir.
The reservoir model used here is a fluid dominated geothermal reservoir. The hydrostatic pressure and the reference temperature are extracted from the mathematical model, in the form of nondimensional system. The Rayleigh number which is the ratio between the enthalpy of convection to the enthalpy of conduction is kept constant, while the characteristic time, velocity, and pressure are isolated in order to develop temperature and flow patterns. In that way, an ideal geothermal reservoir can be built in a laboratory-size geothermal reservoir where the temperature and the flow patterns can be investigated from the reservoir by means of thermocouple and laser Doppier velocymeter.

A typical example of a laboratory model which can be built from a real reservoir is as follow ; when the linear size of the real reservoir is reduced by
I03 and its permeability is multiplied by lo3 the resulting velocity will be magnified by I03. Consequently, the characteristic time required for the fluid to flow from the bottom to the surface in the real situation will be reduced by the factor of I0-6, meaning that the conditions investigated in one-day experiment in the laboratory model is equivalent to almost 3,000 years conditions depicted from the real reservoir.

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