Coupled reservoir-wellbore simulation of geothermal reservoir behavior Original Research Article

The reservoir simulator TOUGH and the wellbore simulator WFSA have been coupled to model flow of geothermal brine in the reservoir as well as in the wellbore. An outline of the structure of the two computer codes is given, together with the relevant equations. A new module, COUPLE, has been written to serve as an interface between TOUGH and WFSA. Two sample problems are given to illustrate the use of the coupled codes. One of these problems compares the results of the new simulation method to those obtained by using the deliverability option in TOUGH. The coupled computing procedure is shown to simulate more accurately the behavior of a geothermal reservoir under exploitation.