Plane-symmetrical simulation of flow and heat transport in fractured geological media: A discrete fracture model with Comsol

Abstract

Fractured geological formations are ubiquitous in geothermal reservoir and enhanced geothermal system. Because of the fast path formed by fractures and the multirate exchange between fracture and matrix, the system cannot be well modeled by single or multi-continuum models. Discrete fracture and matrix model can explicitly accounting for the geometry of fractrues and the contribution of each individualfracture to fluid flow and heat transport, and the exchange between fracture and matrix.In this paper a discrete fracture model is established and implemented in the commercial FEM software Comsol. The model is validated and then used to simulate a randomly generated fracture network to study the characteristic of flow and heat transport in fractured porous media. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.