On temperature attenuation in staged open-loop wells

B.S. Tilley and T. Baumann

Renewable Energy, 2012, vol. 48, issue C, 416-423

Abstract: In exploring deep geothermal energy (>2000 m), heat losses in the bore holes can be significant and are dependent of the pumping rates, and sharp transitions in well diameters and in geology. Temperature drops of 5–15% between the top of the deep aquifer and ground surface are common. Quantifying these energy losses are fundamental to determining the capabilities of the technology. We formulate a mathematical model of the pipe-soil system in the limit where axial convective transport within the pipe balances radial diffusion in the surrounding medium. This results in a coupled system of boundary-value problems for steady-state solutions, and the rates of thermal losses in the axial direction are found as a function of the different pipe radii and lengths. A design choice for the well depth is suggested based on the length of the first stage, the Péclet number, and the eigenvalue of the primary mode.

Keywords: Geothermal wells; Boundary-value problems (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148112001930
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:48:y:2012:i:c:p:416-423

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2012.03.007

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().