Heat flow rate at a bore-face and temperature in the multi-layer media surrounding a borehole. (Q1430744)

The authors study the temperature field in the rock formation disturbed by the heat flow from the bore-hole, assuming the Newton model for the convective heat transfer on the bore-face, with boundary conditions accounting for the thermal history of the bore hole exploitation. The resulting heat conduction equation is solved analytically by the generalized heat balance integral method. In this method the approximate solution is obtained as a finite sum of functions belonging to a complete set of linearly independent functions defined at the finite interval bounded by the radius of thermal influence which satisfies the homogeneous conditions on the bore-face. The solution obtained with second order approximations is in good agreement with the existing exact solution for the homogeneous medium.