Permeability correction factor for fractures with permeable walls

Abstract

Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) are based on the premise that heat can be extracted from hot dry rocks located at significant depths by circulating fluid through fracture networks in the system. Heated fluid is recovered through production wells and the energy is extracted in a heat exchange chamber. There is much published research on flow through fractures, and many models have been developed to describe an effective permeability of a fracture or a fracture network. In these cases however, the walls of the fracture were modelled as being impermeable. In this paper, we have extended our previous work on fractures with permeable walls, and we introduce a correction factor to the equation that governs fracture permeability. The solution shows that the effective fracture permeability for fractures with permeable walls depends not only on the height of the channel, but also on the wall permeability and the wall Reynolds number of the fluid. We show that our solution reduces to the established solution when the fracture walls become impermeable. We also extend the discussion to cover the effective permeability of a system of fractures with permeable walls. Copyright 2012 by the American Geophysical Union.