Shallow heat injection and storage experiment: Heat transport simulation and sensitivity analysis

Interest in heat transport in porous media has increased because of its many applications such use as tracer or in geotechnical engineering solutions. Understanding of the physical processes and parameters determining heat transport is therefore important. In this paper, heat transport is studied during a shallow heat injection and storage field test. The test is simulated using SEAWAT. Sensitivity analyses and collinear diagnostics are used to derive which parameters can be derived from the test and how reliable these values are. Heat transport during the test is compared with heat transport in the surficial zone at the same field site to compare parameter values. The most sensitive parameter is the thermal conductivity of the solid followed by the porosity, heat capacity of the solid and the longitudinal dispersivity. This indicates the predominance of conductive transport during the storage phase over the convective transport during the injection phase. Whereas heat transport in the surficial zone is insensitive to the longitudinal dispersivity, this parameter must be included to simulate the field test. This indicates that dispersivity cannot be ignored simulating convective heat transport in aquifers. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.