Fracture roughness and thermal exchange: A case study at Soultz-sous-Forets

Heat exchange during laminar flow in an open fracture is studied numerically on the basis of the Stokes equation in the limit of hydrothermal lubrication. We examine the influence of fracture roughness on hydraulic permeability and heat flux through the fracture sides when a cold fluid is injected into a homogeneous hot host rock. Spatial temperature fluctuations inside the fluid are studied assuming the temperature of the rock to be constant and the fracture aperture to be self-affine. An application to the case study at the deep geothermal reservoir of Soultz-sous-Forets, France, is presented. Finally, a thermal model based on sparse spatial information of the geometrical aperture is successfully proposed to reproduce the response of the fracture. (C) 2009 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.