Publication Details

Category Text Publication
Reference Category Book chapters
URL http://www.geothermalcongress2013.eu/
Title (Primary) Heat flow's propagation within a porous medium: analogical and numerical modeling
Title (Secondary) Proceedings of the European Geothermal Energy Congress 2013, 3-7 June, Pisa, Italy
Author Comina, C.; Dietrich, P. ORCID logo ; Firmbach, L.; Giordano, N.; Kolditz, O. ORCID logo ; Mandrone, G.; Vienken, T.; Watanabe, N.
Year 2013
Department ENVINF; MET
Language englisch
Keywords Heat propagation; thermal properties; shallow geothermal applications; numerical modeling
UFZ wide themes RU5;
Abstract Determining the thermal characteristics of geologic media has numerous applications for low enthalpy
geothermal systems design and monitoring. Despite the interest in the topic, there appears to be a scarcity of experimental data in this respect, most of the thermal properties evaluations being based on
numerical simulations and back analysis on few real data. Therefore analogical and numerical modeling of
heat flows in an ad hoc designed thermal box are presented here. The designed thermal box is a low cost
apparatus, easily implementable in most laboratories that conversely allow for accurate heat propagation
measurements. Tests performed under different saturation degrees and under induced water fluxes
were analysed to evaluate the effect of moisture content on the heat propagation and the relative
amounts of conductive and convective phenomena into the medium. Cumulative multiple-impulse tests
were also carried out in order to evaluate the heat storage capacity of the material. Analogical data processing confirmed that the heat induced propagates faster from dry to saturated conditions but is less
dependent on intermediate water contents. A stronger increase in the heat propagation velocity was obtained introducing a water flow effect. Numerical simulations performed with OpenGeoSys code reached a good agreement with experimental data, enabling to evaluate the accuracy of the lab tests, to understand in detail the behaviour of the medium at different saturation degrees and to obtain more reliable thermal characteristics. Coupling laboratory measurements with numerical modeling seems to have good potentiality as a reliable and accurate tool for thermal property assessment.
Persistent UFZ Identifier https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=20939&ufzPublicationIdentifier=14275
Comina, C., Dietrich, P., Firmbach, L., Giordano, N., Kolditz, O., Mandrone, G., Vienken, T., Watanabe, N. (2013):
Heat flow's propagation within a porous medium: analogical and numerical modeling
Proceedings of the European Geothermal Energy Congress 2013, 3-7 June, Pisa, Italy