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Effect of cold water entry into a liquid‐dominated two‐phase geothermal reservoir
Author(s) -
Grant Malcolm A.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/wr017i004p01033
Subject(s) - geothermal gradient , fluid dynamics , petroleum engineering , water injection (oil production) , injection well , fluid pressure , pressure drop , geology , mechanics , saturation (graph theory) , drop (telecommunication) , geophysics , engineering , telecommunications , physics , mathematics , combinatorics
The effect of fluid withdrawal and injection into a two‐phase geothermal reservoir is considered. The geothermal reservoir matrix is modeled as a homogeneous porous medium, except that fracturing ensures that injected fluid mixes fully into two‐phase fluid. Withdrawal of fluid causes a pressure drop. Injection of fluid causes a pressure change dependent on the fluid enthalpy and rate of injection, nearly always a pressure drop for cold fluid injection. In addition to the pressure disturbance traveling away from the point of injection, there is a change in saturation near the injection point that travels away vertically. Natural perturbations might introduce cold water into a reservoir by lateral flow. To stabilize the twophase fluid by minimising the advance of such intrusions, a stability criterion is derived. This is shown to be approximately satisfied by observed pressures in several fields.