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Laboratory Scale Resistivity Monitoring of Thermal Flows - Analogical and Numerical Simulations in Water Flux Condition
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, Near Surface Geoscience 2015 - 21st European Meeting of Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, Sep 2015, Volume 2015, p.1 - 5
Abstract
The distribution of thermal plumes in porous media plays an important role in many geological and engineering applications related to closed and open loop low enthalpy geothermal systems. This is particularly true when natural water flows are present affecting the areal distribution of thermal plumes. The present paper present an example of several laboratory tests performed on an ad hoc designed apparatus for testing and calibrating a methodology for monitoring temperature changes caused by heat propagation. Resistivity and temperature measurements are compared with numerical simulations to estimate the reliability of electrical resistivity in evaluating the temperature changes within the medium. The outcomes of the tests highlighted the reliability of the time-lapse electrical measurements for qualitatively and quantitatively predicting the heat propagation within saturated porous media and induced water fluxes at the laboratory scale, to be promisingly extended also at the field scale.