Thermal and Structural Modeling of the Sacrificial Casing for Geothermal Wells

• Main Author: Pekyavas, Mehmet, 1994-
• Other Authors: Háskóli Íslands
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Vélaverkfræði; Jarðhiti; Borholur; Bútaaðferð; Viðhald; Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1946/33356

Geothermal energy is widely used in Iceland for electricity generation in power plants and direct utilization in space heating, greenhouses and swimming pools. Although the operational costs of utilizing geothermal energy is low, the maintenance of geothermal wells can be costly. A novel casing protection, the Sacrificial Casing, could be used to decrease the maintenance costs of high temperature geothermal wells, as well as protecting them from corrosion and high loads due to constrained thermal expansion effects of the geothermal well environment. This project investigates the advantages of using the sacrificial casing in high temperature geothermal wells by using finite element methods. Multiple axisymmetric 2D thermal and structural analyses were conducted using ANSYS Mechanical software. Pressure and temperature data from a geothermal well in Iceland (HE-61) was used to analyze and compare three different drilling and production scenarios with and without the sacrificial casing in the well. Gerosion The Technology Development Fund (RANNÍS)