PROCEEDINGS, Thirtieth Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering

Stanford University, Stanford, California, January 31-February 2, 2005

SGP-TR-176

COUPLING THE HOLA WELLBORE SIMULATOR WITH TOUGH2

Ashish Bhat
Daniel Swenson
Shekhar Gosavi

Kansas State University

Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department
Manhattan, KS-66506, USA.
e-mail: ashish@ksu.edu

and WELLSIM wellbore simulator. They generate a

ABSTRACT
This paper describes a coupled model between the
reservoir simulator TOUGH2 and wellbore simulator
HOLA. The goal is to provide increased capability in
TOUGH2 to better model flow in geothermal systems
containing inclined wells with multiple feedzones.
The model accounts for varying flowing bottomhole
pressure and flow entering the wellbore from
multiple feedzones at different depths, with the fluid
in different thermodynamic states.
This approach facilitates a more accurate simulation
of behavior of the geothermal reservoir being
exploited. The standard TOUGH2 input data is
extended to support the new capability. Some sample
problems are solved using coupled simulator and
compared with the results obtained from the current
deliverability model in TOUGH2.
MOTIVATION
An Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) is being
exploited at the East Flank area of Coso Geothermal
field, California. It is an ideal testing site with high
rock temperatures at depths less than 10,000 ft and a
high degree of fracturing and tectonic stresses.
However, some of the wells within this portion of the
reservoir are relatively impermeable and exhibit a
significant drawdown. Characterization of the flow
near the wellbore, becomes even more important in
such settings.
Field data for the Coso wells also reveals the
presence of two-phase flow and multiple feedzones.
This leaves the standard coupled wellbore flow
option in TOUGH2 unusable, since it is limited to
wells with a single feedzone.
Previous authors have developed coupled well and
reservoir models. Murray and Gunn (1993) presented
coupling between the TETRAD reservoir simulator
series of wellbore tables using WELLSIM, which are
then used for interpolation by TETRAD.
Hadgu et al., (1995) describe a coupling of TOUGH2
and WFSA. The WFSA simulator is one of the three
parts of the WELLSIM simulator package (Gunn and
Freeston, 1991). However, discussion with the author
indicated that development of this coupled package
had stopped and that the software was not readily
available.
This paper describes coupling of TOUGH2
specifically with the HOLA simulator. We plan to
extend this to the GWELL, GWNACL and HOLA
family of wellbore simulation models, to form a
complete package. All source code is available
publicly for use by others.
HOLA WELLBORE SIMULATOR
HOLA is a multi-feedzone geothermal wellbore
simulator for pure water (modified after Bjornsson,
1987). It can handle both single phase and two phase
flows in a well, with variable grid spacing and
wellbore radii. GWELL(Aunzo,1990) and GWNACL
are modified versions of HOLA, that can handle
H2O-CO2 and H2O-NaCl systems respectively. They
were developed using FORTRAN language.
HOLA reproduces the measured pressure and
temperature profile in a flowing well and determines
thermodynamic properties of water, relative flow
rates at each feedzone for a given discharge condition
at the wellhead. It has two approaches (Option 1 and
Option 2) for wellbore flow simulation. Option 1
needs known discharge condition at the wellhead
(pressure, temperature and enthalpy), in addition to
flow rates and enthalpies of all but the last feedzone.
The simulator proceeds from wellhead-to-bottomhole
to calculate the flowing temperature and pressure
profile along the well. In Option 2, the user specifies
the required flowing wellhead pressure and
bottomhole pressure and for each feedzone, the dEt
productivity indices and thermodynamic properties of The total energy flux gradient, is the sum of
reservoir fluid. The simulator then proceeds dL
bottomhole-to-wellhead to calculate the expected discharges in the heat content of the fluid, kinetic and
wellhead output (wellhead enthalpy, flowrate, potential energy. It is expressed as,
temperature and phase composition) for the required
wellhead pressure. dEt
dL
•

=m
d
dL
[
hm + 0.5u m + g (L − D ) (7)
2
]
Governing equations are represented by two sets of
equations. Namely, Between the feedzone and At the
feedzone. The important equations are given below. Where hm is enthalpy of mixture, D is measured
depth till the current grid-node.
Flow between feedzones
An approximate solution for Qt when we have the
Between the feedzones the flow is represented by
term, ∩ t / rw >> 1 (Carslaw and Jaeger, 1959) is
2
one-dimensional steady-state momentum, energy and
mass flux balances. given as,

Mass Balance −1
⎡ ⎧4 ∩ t ⎫⎤
dm
•
Qt ≈ 4τ π (Tw − Tr ) ⎢ln ⎨ 2 − 2η ⎬⎥ (8)
=0 (1) ⎢⎣ ⎩ rw ⎭⎥⎦
dL Where, η is the Euler’s constant (= 0.577216...),
•

Where m = mass flow rate, L = length of pipe τ is rock thermal conductivity, t is time, ∩ is rock
thermal diffusivity, Tw and Tr are temperatures in the
Momentum Balance well and reservoir respectively. Above equation does
The total pressure gradient is the sum of the friction not take into account, transient changes in
gradient, acceleration gradient and potential gradient. temperature and additional heat losses due to
convection, when the well is flowing. However the
heat loss term in equation (6) is very small compared
dP ⎡ dP ⎤ ⎡ dP ⎤ ⎡ dP ⎤ to total energy flux term.
−⎢ ⎥ −⎢ ⎥ −⎢ ⎥ = 0 (2)
dL ⎣ dL ⎦ fri ⎣ dL ⎦ acc ⎣ dL ⎦ pot
Where, At the feedzone
⎡ dP ⎤ 2 ⎡ dP ⎤
At the feedzone, the mass and energy of inflow (or
⎢⎣ dL ⎥⎦ = φ Flow ⎢⎣ dL ⎥⎦ (3) outflow) are given, and then mass and energy balance
fri LO are performed, to continue further along the well.
⎡ dP ⎤ d (G u m ) Here assumptions made are, instantaneous mixing
⎢ dL ⎥ = dL (4) occurs and it occurs at the wellbore pressure.
⎣ ⎦ acc
⎡ dP ⎤ Mass Balance
⎢⎣ dL ⎥⎦ = p g sin θ (5) r
m& m
r r
= m& w − m& f (9)
pot

⎡ dP ⎤ Subscripts m, w, f represent mixture, well, feedzone

⎢⎣ dL ⎥⎦ is the pressure drop for a flowing single- respectively.
LO
Flow from the feedzone for Option 2 is calculated
phase liquid and φ2
Flow
is the two-phase multiplier. using Darcy’s law as follows,

G is the mass flux, um is average fluid velocity, θ is ⎡ k ρ k ρ ⎤ ⎡ dP ⎤

well deviation angle from horizontal. q = k A ⎢ rl l + rv v ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ (10)
⎣ µl µ v ⎦ ⎣ dr ⎦
Energy Balance where k is intrinsic permeability, krl and krv is relative
permeability for water and vapor. µ is the viscosity.
dEt
± Qt = 0 (6)
dL Energy Balance
r r r
m& m H m = m& w H w − m& f H f (11)
Where H is fluid enthalpy. Positive flowrate at the
wellhead or a feedzone indicates production, while
negative flowrate indicates injection. The mass flow
in the well can have two possible directions, upward
(producing) and downward (injecting). Also the flow
for feedzone can be towards the well(producing) or
towards reservoir (injecting). HOLA takes all such
six combinations into consideration. It can be noted
here that simulator WFSA assumes the fluid that
enters the well from a feedzone, flows upward only.
Formulae for two-phase flow calculations are taken
after Chisholm (1983). Gas and liquid phase
velocities are needed in the evaluation of momentum
flux and energy equations. They can only be obtained
by empirical correlations. Two choices are provided
to user, to calculate these velocities, namely
Armand(1946) correlation and Orkiszewski(1983)
correlation. Reader is referred to Aunzo et al. (1991)
for further details on input-output format of HOLA
and various correlations.
TOUGH2 SIMULATOR
TOUGH2 is a numerical simulator for non-
isothermal flow of multi-component, multiphase
fluids in one, two or three dimensional porous and
fractured media (Pruess et al., 1999). It is a member
of MULCOM family of codes, written in standard
FORTRAN77 language and widely used in
geothermal applications. Hence just a brief
description of it is being given here with emphasis on
sink/source feature.
Darcy’s law is used to describe the single phase and
two-phase flow. For the EOS1 water module, primary
thermodynamic variables are pressure and
temperature for a single phase flow, while pressure,
temperature and phase saturation for two-phase flow.
Various relative permeability functions and capillary
pressure function, as a function of phase saturation
are provided. TOUGH2 solves fluid motion by space
discretization using the “Integral Finite Difference”
Method (Edwards, 1972; Narasimhan and
Witherspoon, 1976). Time is also discretized in a
fully implicit manner as a first order backward finite
difference. As a result, a set of strongly coupled non-
linear algebraic equations are formed, which are
rearranged in a residual form. These equations are
then solved iteratively by Newton-Raphson method,
with time-dependent primary thermodynamic
variables of all grid blocks as unknowns to be
determined by bringing residual within a specified
error limit.
A well is represented as a sink/source. Sink/Source is
specified directly as a grid block that acts as a region
where injection or production of fluid mass and/or
heat from the reservoir occurs. Various options are
available for specifying the injection/production. One
of them is also a deliverability model for production
wells to evaluate well-output based on a fixed
specified bottomhole pressure and productivity index.
The mass production rate with this option for phase β
from a grid block with phase pressure P β > Pwb is,
k rβ
qβ = ρ β ⋅PI ⋅ ( Pβ − Pwb ) (12)
µβ
Thus the total rate of production for mass component
κ is,
qˆ κ = ∑β X βκ qβ (13)
X βκ is the mass fraction of phase β of component κ.
As opposed to HOLA, a negative flow rate in
TOUGH2 indicates production and a positive flow
means injection.
COUPLING OF HOLA WITH TOUGH2
Typically geothermal wells operate at almost a
constant wellhead pressure. The well-output (flow
rate and enthalpy at wellhead) varies with time,
which means well bore pressure gradient and/or
bottomhole pressure change with time. Thus it is
more accurate to simulate a flowing wellbore against
a variable bottomhole pressure. This exact approach
is followed in our work, summarized as follows,
i) A separate input file for each well in the reservoir
is read in TOUGH2.
ii) Unlike the current coupled wellbore flow option
in TOUGH2 with ‘F----‘ type of wells (in which
interpolation into predetermined well-tables is
performed), an explicit call is made to HOLA, at
the start of each new timestep. It can be noted that
HOLA has been converted into a subroutine in
the coupled code.
iii) Required reservoir parameters are supplied to
HOLA as input. Choice of initial guess value for
bottomhole pressure and pressure step for
iteration is left to the user through the input file.
iv) HOLA then iterates using ‘option 2’ to calculate
flow rates and enthalpies at various feedzones and
at the wellhead.
v) A positive (negative) flow rate calculated at a
feedzone in HOLA is supplied as a constant
production(injection) rate to the corresponding
source/sink element in TOUGH2, during regular
timestep calculations of TOUGH2.
vi) Enthalpies for the producing element are
calculated inside TOUGH2. For injection,
enthalpy is taken from by HOLA. This approach
is comparable to the two basic options in
TOUGH2 for specifying the source/sink, namely
‘MASS’ option and ‘COM’ option. ‘MASS’
option specifies constant mass production rate
with enthalpies to be determined from conditions
in producing block. While option ‘COM’
 represents mass injection at a constant rate with
specified enthalpy.
vii) Procedure from step (ii) to (vi) is then repeated
for the next time-step with updated values of
reservoir parameters. Now the initial guess for the
bottomhole pressure is the converged value at the
previous timestep.
Some of the features of the coupled code are,
• There is no change in the TOUGH2 input file. A
coupled simulation with HOLA, is indicated in
the GENER block of TOUGH2 input file. User
specifies up to a five character long string name
that starts with either ‘H’ or ‘h’, for each well.
e.g. if a TYPE and ITAB record were specified
as ‘H349’ and ‘a’, the program expects an input
file with the name, ‘H349a’ present in the folder.
• Input file for each well, is in similar spirit of the
standard HOLA input file for option 2.
• The user can also specify the wellhead pressure
as time dependent data. Triple linear
interpolation is then performed on this data and
an average of wellhead pressure at the starting
and ending time of current time-step is used for
the calculation.
• User may not want to keep a well flowing
through the complete time-span of a reservoir
run. Hence shut-in and flowing option is
provided to the user.
• With a proper choice pressure-step for iterations
and a reasonable error limit on wellhead
pressure, HOLA computes very fast, Hence
comparatively there is not much compromise on
computational time.
The coupling procedure was aimed to make minimal
changes in TOUGH2 and HOLA. The TOUGH2
subroutines in which the changes were made are,
INPUT, RFILE, CYCIT, QU and OUT. Mostly new
code blocks were added rather than a change in the
original code. The input file for HOLA is read in
RFILE and care is taken to properly preserve the
sink/source indices and total number of generation
grid blocks. The call to HOLA is made in CYCIT
before the iterations for TOUGH2 begin. One more
case was added to sink/source subroutine, QU to
handle the coupled simulation with HOLA.
Appropriate terms for Newton-Raphson iterations are
calculated here. A small block of code was added to
OUT, to get a printed output of well flow-rates,
enthalpies and bottomhole pressure.
The “Main” program of the original HOLA code is
abandoned and a new subroutine HOLA( ) is written.
Its purpose is same as the original main program, but
there is no user interactive feature involved. Also
some other new routines and functions are written.
Here is their brief description,
i) SUBROUTINE PrepHOLA( ): gets the required
reservoir parameter values from TOUGH2 and
supplies them to HOLA.
ii) SUBROUTINE TabPwh( ): finds current
wellhead pressure from time-dependent table
data.
iii) SUBROUTINE FindTime( ): locates the current
time in a tabular time data.
iv) SUBROUTINE PwhInter( ): calculates wellhead
pressure at given time, by doing triple linear
interpolation between the values for starting time
and end time.
The hard-coded simulation parameters in HOLA
were all brought at one place, so that they are
accessible to user and could be changed as per
problem size. Choice of a pressure step for
bottomhole pressure iteration is left to the user’s
discretion. More study is required to improve the
performance of HOLA (Hadgu and Bodvarsson,
1992). Some issues in HOLA that have been
addressed are,
i) In subroutine VINNA2, while calculating the
mass flow rate for the last feedzone, an average of
reservoir fluid parameters and wellbore fluid
parameters such as density, saturation, viscosity
was being taken. A scenario in which one fluid
could be single phase and other two-phase was
not handled, leading to erroneous results. As an
alternative to that we followed a simpler approach
of using only reservoir parameters when fluid is
entering the well and for the case of injection we
use only wellbore fluid parameters.
ii) Some instances of un-initialized variables have
been corrected.
iii) For relative permeability calculations, HOLA
follows a simple approach. They are assumed to
vary linearly between 0 to 1 and are equal to the
phase saturation. We extended the various relative
permeability calculation options available in
TOUGH2 to HOLA also. And then HOLA uses
the same choice of calculation as chosen by user
in TOUGH2 input file.
iv) We encountered a case in which the reservoir
pressure was same as iterative value of
bottomhole pressure. It lead to a division by zero
calculation putting the program into an infinite
loop. This was taken care of.
v) We are correcting a minor error regarding the way
inclined wells are currently handled in HOLA.
SAMPLE PROBLEM
Sample problem number 5 from the TOUGH2 user’s
guide is chosen as an example. This problem was
originally taken after Hadgu et al., 1995. In this
example, a coupled simulation model is compared
with the deliverability option in TOUGH2.
A well of inside diameter 0.2 m produces from a 500 GWELL and GWNACL simulators to form a
m thick two-phase reservoir containing water at complete package of coupled code.
initial conditions of P = 60 bars, T = Tsat (P) = 275.5
˚C, Sg = 0.1. Wellhead pressure is 7 bars and the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
feedzone depth is 1000 m. A 1-D radial grid was
created by means of MESHMAKER input file The authors appreciate discussions with Teklu Hadgu
provided in the TOUGH2 user’s guide. The at Sandia National Laboratories and Karsten Pruess at
wellblock radius is 100 m and the grid extends to LBNL. This work is supported by the U.S.
10,000 m. The well productivity index is 4.64e-11 Department of Energy, Assistant Secretary for
m3. Simulation starts with a time-step of 1.e5 Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, under
seconds and ends at a time of 1.e9 seconds (approx. DOE Financial Assistance Award DE-FC07-
31.7 years) 01ID14186.

First a run with coupled simulation is performed. REFERENCES

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