GEONEAT · Complex Fluids in Fractured Geological Media for Enhanced Heat Transfer
Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2024-03-01 → 2027-02-28
- EU contribution
- €265,099
- Participants
- 3
- Scheme
- HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Complex Fluids in Fractured Geological Media for Enhanced Heat Transfer
Understanding how fluids and heat move through fractured rocks is essential for many subsurface technologies, including geothermal energy production, groundwater management, underground energy storage and environmental remediation. In fractured geological formations, fluid flow and transport processes are controlled by complex interactions between fracture geometry, fluid properties and heat exchange with the surrounding rock matrix. These processes are difficult to predict using conventional models because natural fractures are highly heterogeneous and often exhibit irregular rough surfaces. The GEONEAT project addresses these challenges by developing modelling approaches designed to capture the essential interplay between geological heterogeneity, fluid properties, and heat transfer processes in fractured media. In particular, the project investigates how structural heterogeneity, including fracture roughness and network connectivity, interacts with fluid rheology and thermal exchange between fractures and the surrounding rock matrix to control large-scale transport processes. These mechanisms are relevant in many subsurface applications where complex fluids are injected underground and where heat transfer plays a central role. The overall objective of the project is to improve the predictive capability of models used to describe flow and transport in fractured systems. By combining theoretical analysis, numerical simulations and stochastic modelling approaches, the project investigates how microscopic processes occurring inside fractures can be upscaled to predict macroscopic transport behaviour at larger scales. Particular attention is devoted to the role of complex fluid rheology and to the thermal signatures that such fluids may generate during flow and heat transport in fractured media. The results are expected to contribute to more reliable modelling tools for geothermal systems, subsurface energy technologies and groundwater resources.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
GEONEAT aims at unraveling the potential of engineered shear-thinning (ST) fluids in enhanced geothermal systems to improve heat recovery efficiency and in heat tracer tests to infer structural parameters of deep hot reservoirs. Cutting-edge interdisciplinary methodologies from applied mathematics and hydrology are merged in a novel framework to achieve two scientific objectives: (1) characterizing quantitatively how using engineered fluids impacts coupled flow and heat transfers in fractured media at all scales; (2) inferring structural information on fractured media from coupling inverse modeling to field measurements of the heat exchange using complex fluids of different rheologies. To this aim, two technical challenges will be tackled: (1) the development of a multiscale model of coupled flow and heat transport in fractured geological formations; (2) the obtention of experimental data in a synthetic analog medium, to validate the model and constrain an inverse model for characterizing the medium’s geometry. GEONEAT relies on the expertise of a top-notch consortium consisting of the University of Bologna (beneficiary, supervisor Prof. Vittorio Di Federico and co-supervisor Prof. Valentina Ciriello, experts in subsurface stochastic modeling), Stanford University (outgoing phase, supervisor Prof. Daniel M. Tartakovsky and co-supervisor Prof. Roland Horne, experts in uncertainty quantification, inverse modeling, and geothermal energy), and the University Rennes 1 (secondment, supervisor Prof. Yves Méheust and co-supervisor Dr. Maria Klepikova, experts in subsurface heat transfers and analog experiments of flow and transport). Dr. Lenci will receive excellent training in the three institutions to pursue outstanding research, propelling his career development towards becoming a tenured researcher in EU academia. GEONEAT will contribute to promoting the growth of a low-carbon, sustainable, renewable energy market, consistent with the EU’s green goals and priorities.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA · BolognaCoordinatorItaly
- BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY · STANFORDUnited States
- UNIVERSITE DE RENNES · RennesFrance
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/101111216
- https://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/documents/downloadPublic?documentIds=080166e5100e44d1&appId=PPGMS
Data: CORDIS, © European Union