THERMAL EFFECTS OF CHANNELING FLOW WITHIN ROUGH FRACTURES

Fractures in geothermal reservoirs are typically modeled as parallel plates. However, real fractures have rough surfaces that create heterogeneous local aperture distributions. The significant heterogeneity in the local aperture causes flow channeling, where the effective flow area is greatly reduced. Furthermore, channelized fracture flow patterns result to inefficient heat transport due to the reduction in the surface area available for heat conduction. In this study, we investigate the heat transport effects of flow channeling in rough fractures. Heterogeneous aperture maps are generated using the displacement discontinuity boundary element method (DDM) with integrated complementarity. Thermal effects are estimated using the Lauwerier solution and a finite difference model.