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Progress on Heat Transfer in Fractures of Hot Dry Rock Enhanced Geothermal System

Yiya Wang, Hailong Yu^*, Shucheng Wu, Li Liu, Liuyang Huang, Baozhong Zhu, Yunlan Sun, Enhai Liu

School of Petroleum Engineering, Changzhou University, Changzhou, China

* Corresponding Author: Hailong Yu. Email:

Energy Engineering 2021, 118(4), 797-823. https://doi.org/10.32604/EE.2021.014467

Received 29 September 2020; Accepted 19 December 2020; Issue published 31 May 2021

Abstract

Hot Dry Rock (HDR) is the most potential renewable geothermal energy in the future. Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) is the most effective method for the development and utilization of HDR resources, and fractures are the main flow channels and one of the most important conditions for studying heat transfer process of EGS. Therefore, the heat transfer process and the heat transfer mechanism in fractures of EGS have been the hot spots of research. Due to the particularity of the mathematical models of heat transfer, research in this field has been at an exploratory stage, and its methods are mainly experimental tests and numerical simulations. This paper introduces the progress on heat transfer in fractures of Hot Dry Rock EGS in detail, provides a comparative analysis of the research results and prospects for future research directions: It is suggested that relevant scholars should further study the mathematical equations which are applicable to engineering construction of seepage heat transfer in irregular fractures of the rock mass, the unsteady heat transfer process between multiple fractures of the rock mass and the heat transfer mechanism of the complex three-dimensional models of EGS.

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