NUMERIC ANALYSIS OF TEMPERATURE PROFILE OF OIL AND GAS WELLS AS THE COUNTER-FLOW DOUBLE PIPE HEAT EXCHANGER WITH INLET THROUGH ANNULUS

• Main Author: Muhammad Arief, Irfan
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/49159
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Geothermal energy is the only heat source that does not need any combustion process. One of many obstacles to develop a geothermal field is the drilling cost. The solution to overcome this problem is to utilize unproductive oil and gas wells to become geothermal energy sources. Roughly, this solution could save about 50% of the installation cost needed. This study’s objective is to obtain the temperature profile of oil and gas wells that being circulated by working fluids. The profile temperature of the oil and gas wells is used as a basis for analyzing its geothermal potential. In this study, oil and gas wells are considered as the counter-flow double pipe heat exchanger. The working fluid is injected into the annulus and comes out through the drill pipe. There are two methods to obtain the well’s profile temperature, analytical approach and computational using MATLAB. In the second method, this study uses the implicit method in the radial direction. The heat transfer occurred in radial and axial directions. Based on the calculated well’s temperature profile, the potential will refer to the Lindal diagram. This study results show that there are differences in the output temperature between the analytical and MATLAB computational methods with the biggest difference is 1,34%. However, the difference does not have much effect on the well’s potential as a source of geothermal energy. These wells can be utilized for soil warming, de-icing, warm pools, and fish farming.