A High-Performance Computing Approach for Simulating Coupled Multi-Scale Thermal-Hydraulic-Mechanical-Chemical (THMC) Processes in Fractured Porous Media: An Example from the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) Enhanced Geothermal System Test Site

The Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) is the United States Department of Energy's flagship laboratory for the study of enhanced geothermal systems, focusing on the creation of fractures in the subsurface to create a geothermal reservoir, and the sustainable extraction of heat and fluid from the newly created system. Modeling and simulation are playing a critical role at FORGE, being considered a general scientific discovery tool to elucidate behavior of enhanced geothermal systems and as a deterministic (or stochastic) tool to plan and predict specific activities

Multi-scale, multi-physics models have been developed to simulate the coupled thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) responses of the subsurface to FORGE activities. Modeling, in conjunction with monitoring, plays an important role in evaluating experiments conducted at the site to facilitate optimal use of the field laboratory. The modeling and simulation team has created models at several scales: this presentation will focus on development and results from coupled simulations for operational scenario evaluation of thermal hydraulics in well bores (cm scale), flow and transport in discrete fractures (micron scale for aperture, 10's to 100's m scale for length), regional heat/mass transfer and stress-strain relationships (10's km scale).