NONLINEAR EFFECTS IN WATER-VAPOR EXTRACTION 
FROM A GEOTHERMAL RESERVOIR

C. N. Richardsona and G. G. Tsypkinb 

UDC 532.546

The flow of a water<196>vapor mixture with phase transitions 
in a geothermal reservoir is considered. The equations were solved 
using a similarity approach. Linearized equations were considered 
analytically, and the full nonlinear equations were investigated numerically. 
It was found that for flows with large gradients of temperature and 
pressure, the water-saturation function can change nonmonotonically 
and have a minimum value at some distance from the extraction point. 
It was shown that if the liquid phase contains dissolved salt then 
the vaporization process can lead to precipitation of the latter in 
this low-saturation zone. In the plane of the main parameters, the 
critical diagram, which distinguishes different regimes of salt precipitation, 
is constructed.

aInstitute for Multiphase Flow, University of Cambridge, Madingley 
Rise, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 OEZ, UK; email: chris@bpi.cam.ac.uk; 
bInstitute of Problems of Mechanics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 
101 Vernadskii Ave., Moscow, 119526, Russia; email: tsypkin@ipmnet.ru. 
Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 77, No. 2, pp. 
24-30, March-April, 2004. Original article submitted August 22, 2003.