A Semi-Analytical Method for Three-Dimensional Heat Transfer in Multi-Fracture Enhanced Geothermal Systems

• Main Authors: Dongdong Liu, Yanyong Xiang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-03-01
• Series: Energies
• Subjects: enhanced geothermal systems; multiple parallel fractures; semi-analytical solution
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/7/1211

Multiple fractures have been proposed for improving the heat extracted from an enhanced geothermal system (EGS). For calculating the production temperature of a multi-fracture EGS, previous analytical or semi-analytical methods have all been based on an infinite scale of fractures and one-dimensional conduction in the rock matrix. Here, a temporal semi-analytical method is presented in which finite-scale fractures and three-dimensional conduction in the rock matrix are both considered. Firstly, the developed model was validated by comparing it with the analytical solution, which only considers one-dimensional conduction in the rock matrix. Then, the temporal semi-analytical method was used to predict the production temperature in order to investigate the effects of fracture spacing and fracture number on the response of an EGS with a constant total injection rate. The results demonstrate that enlarging the spacing between fractures and increasing the number of fractures can both improve the heat extraction; however, the latter approach is much more effective than the former. In addition, the temporal semi-analytical method is applicable for optimizing the design of an EGS with multiple fractures located equidistantly or non-equidistantly.