Geothermics, Vol.23, No.4, 339-353, 1994
PREDICTION OF GEOTHERMAL WELL PRESSURE AND TEMPERATURE PROFILES
The existing MIDA data bank is dedicated to experimental data of pressure drops and densities of two-phase mixtures flowing in rectilinear ducts; to this was added a MIDA-G sub-bank to collect experimental pressure and temperature profiles in two-phase mixtures in geothermal wells. To date 1897 items of data of 27 pressure and temperature profiles have been collected in five geothermal wells. The previously developed two-phase pressure drop correlation, CeSNEF-2, was used to predict these pressure and temperature profiles, given the bottom-hole data. Results are good for pressure profiles, but are less satisfactory, although acceptable, for temperature profiles. Possible explanations are: these ''in-the-field'' data are less accurate than laboratory data; an unpredictable modification of the inside surface; uncertainties in heat losses, both along the well and between the different wells; unreliability of the thermodynamic equilibrium hypothesis and of the Dalton and Henry laws in this environment.