Influence of low temperature tail water reinjection on seepage and heat transfer of carbonate reservoirs

Abstract

Seepage and heat transfer in the carbonate reservoir under low-temperature tail water reinjection is a complex coupling process, which is an important basis for scientific and reasonable evaluation of geothermal resource sustainability. This study based on the tracer test of double-well reinjection for carbonate heat reservoir, a coupling model of seepage field and temperature field of fracture network is established by using the finite element software COMSOL. The uncertainty analysis is carried out to study the fluid-thermal coupling process of carbonate fracture under the condition of low-temperature tail water reinjection.The variation law of seepage field and temperature field of thermal reservoir under low-temperature geothermal tail water reinjection is revealed, The variation of measured temperature of thermal reservoir pumping side under different reinjection conditions is predicted. The results show that the dominant fracture channels between wells of the fractured heat reservoir in Xian county geothermal field play an important role in controlling the seepage heat transfer. Under the coupling action of the seepage field, pressure field and the temperature field of the heat reservoir, the low-temperature tail water reinjection forms a preferential flow along the dominant channels, which is one of the important factors to consider in the prediction of thermal breakthrough. Reinjection pressure, temperature and well spacing are the main factors for artificial control of geothermal production and reinjection system. In the pumping and reinjection system of Xian county geothermal field, under the conditions of 0.5 MPa reinjection pressure, 30 °C reinjection tail water temperature and 270 m spacing between pumping and reinjection wells, the heat reservoir temperature at the pumping side decreased by 1.5 °C in 100 years.

Research progress on temperature field evolution of hot reservoirs under low-temperature tailwater reinjection

“…This process involves thermal conduction, convection, diffusion, and changes in the physicochemical properties of rocks, leading to continuous changes in the distribution of temperature within the reservoir. The time span of temperature field evolution in reinjection projects can span years, decades, or even centuries (Du et al 2021;Wang et al 2022b;Wang et al 2021;Shi et al 2023;Zayed et al 2023).…”

Heat-Flow Coupling Law for Freezing a Pipe Reinforcement with Varying Curvatures

“…The localized freezing of fluid within the seepage field results in the displacement of the seepage field boundary, causing fluctuations in the fluid's permeability coefficient due to temperature variations. Therefore, the differential control equation of the seepage field under the influence of temperature is given by [22][23][24]…”

Water-bearing effect on mechanical properties and interface failure mode of coal–rock combination samples

“…In the process of underground coal mining, the specific geological environment such as water-rich aquifers (Fan and Zhang, 2015), artificial dams of underground reservoir (Lyu et al, 2022) and water-resisting coal pillars (Galav et al, 2022) will act on the coal-rock mass as a water-bearing environment, harming its mechanical properties, structural integrity, bearing capacity, and stability. Eventually, this action will have a fatal impact on the large coal-rock structures, violate the overall coal-rock system stability, and pose a potential threat to coal mine production safety (Ding et al, 2021;Frenelus et al, 2022;Liu et al, 2020;Ma et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2021a;Yi et al, 2022). Therefore, it is crucial to clarify the evolution of mechanical properties and damage failure mode of coal-rock mass with different water contents.…”