Two-phase geothermal model with fracture network and multi-branch wells (Q6071905)

This paper focuses on the numerical modelling of geothermal systems in complex geological settings. The proposed approach is based on unstructured meshes to model complex features such as faults and deviated wells. It solves liquid-vapor two-phase Darcy flows coupled with energy transfers and thermodynamical equilibrium. The polytopal and essentially nodal Vertex Approximate Gradient scheme is used for the approximation of the Darcy and Fourier fluxes combined with a Control Volume approach for the transport of mass and energy. Particular attention is paid to the faults which are modelled as two-dimensional interfaces defined as a collection of faces of the mesh and to the flow inside deviated or multi-branch wells defined as a collection of edges of the mesh with rooted tree data structure. Some numerical tests are presented to support the theoretical results.