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Simulation Tools for Modeling Thermal Spallation Drilling on Multiple Scales

Metadata Updated: January 20, 2025

Widespread adoption of geothermal energy will require access to deeply buried resources in granitic basement rocks at high temperatures and pressures. Exploiting these resources necessitates novel methods for drilling, stimulation, and maintenance, under operating conditions that are often difficult or impossible to reproduce in laboratory settings. Physically rigorous numerical modeling tools are vital to highlight potential risks, guide process optimization and reduce the uncertainties involved in developing new technologies for these environments. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has developed, and is constantly improving, several multi-physics solid/structural mechanics, fluid dynamics, chemistry, and discrete element codes. Integration of the LLNL simulation tools into a coherent simulation environment will provide a predictive capability for the thermomechanical response - in particular the spall and fracture - of basement rocks at high temperatures and pressures useful for drilling and other geothermal applications. This paper outlines a modeling effort investigating the processes involved in hydrothermal spallation drilling. These include interconnected phenomena on several length and time scales: from system-scale fluid dynamics and heat transfer of the high temperature jet to the rock face to the grain-scale thermomechanics of spallation. Three models are described to capture these different scale processes: a grain-scale model to investigate the onset of spallation; a particulate fluids model to simulate the transport of the produced spalls; and a borehole-scale model to represent the integrated system behavior.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: Creative Commons Attribution

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Dates

Metadata Created Date January 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date January 20, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from OpenEI data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date January 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date January 20, 2025
Publisher Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Maintainer
Identifier https://data.openei.org/submissions/6531
Data First Published 2012-01-01T07:00:00Z
Data Last Modified 2017-05-23T22:15:26Z
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 019:20
Metadata Context https://openei.org/data.json
Metadata Catalog ID https://openei.org/data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Data Quality True
Datagov Dedupe Retained 20250120143002
Harvest Object Id dbb734d7-60ed-475d-9dc7-433473b15421
Harvest Source Id 7cbf9085-0290-4e9f-bec1-91653baeddfd
Harvest Source Title OpenEI data.json
Homepage URL https://gdr.openei.org/submissions/176
License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Program Code 019:006
Projectlead Greg Stillman
Projectnumber LLNL FY12 AOP2
Projecttitle Geomechanical Modeling for Thermal Spallation Drilling
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash a8c7a98560b8cfec99a5f316671045c2be8e3b1e01a6b8c780ca8977d03d4227
Source Schema Version 1.1

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