INFLUENCE OF CAPILLARY FORCES
ON THE REGIME OF WATER EVAPORATION
IN HIGH-TEMPERATURE ROCKS

G. G. Tsypkina and C. Caloreb

UDC 532.546

A one-dimensional problem of the injection of water into 
a geothermal reservoir saturated with a superheated vapor in the presence 
of capillary forces has been investigated in an isothermal approximation. 
It is shown that in wettable rocks the capillary forces increase the 
velocity of motion of the front and decrease it in unwettable ones. 
If the capillary forces play a decisive role, then in wettable rocks 
an extended region of phase transitions is formed behind the evaporation 
front under the action of capillary forces.

aInstitute of the Problems of Mechanics, Russian Academy 
of Sciences, 101 Vernadskii Ave., Moscow, 119526, Russia; email: 
tsypkin@ipmnet.ru; bIstituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse-CNR, Area 
della Ricerca CNR, Italy. Translated from Inzhenerno-Fizicheskii 
Zhurnal, Vol. 81, No. 1, pp. 176-183, January-February, 2008. 
Original article submitted November 14, 2006.