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Perturbative corrections for the scaling of heat transport in a Hele-Shaw geometry and its application to geological vertical fractures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2019

Juvenal A. Letelier Open the ORCID record for Juvenal A. Letelier [Opens in a new window] ,
Nicolás Mujica Open the ORCID record for Nicolás Mujica [Opens in a new window]  and
Jaime H. Ortega Open the ORCID record for Jaime H. Ortega [Opens in a new window]
Juvenal A. Letelier*
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ingeniería Civil, Recursos Hídricos y Medio Ambiente, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Avenida Blanco Encalada 2002, Santiago 8370449, Chile Centro de Excelencia en Geotermia de los Andes, Plaza Ercilla 803, Santiago 8370450, Chile
Nicolás Mujica
Affiliation:
Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Avenida Blanco Encalada 2008, Santiago 8370449, Chile
Jaime H. Ortega
Affiliation:
Departamento de Ingeniería Matemática y Centro de Modelamiento Matemático, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile, Beauchef 851, Santiago 8370456, Chile
*
†Email address for correspondence: juvenal.letelier@ing.uchile.cl
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Abstract

In this work, we investigate numerically the perturbative effects of cell aperture in heat transport and thermal dissipation rate for a vertical Hele-Shaw geometry, which is used as an analogue representation of a planar vertical fracture at the laboratory scale. To model the problem, we derive a two-dimensional set of equations valid for this geometry. For Hele-Shaw cells heated from below and above, with periodic boundary conditions in the horizontal direction, the model gives new nonlinear scalings for both the time-averaged Nusselt number $\langle Nu\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}$ and dimensionless mean thermal dissipation rate $\langle \unicode[STIX]{x1D717}\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}$ in the high-Rayleigh regime. We demonstrate that $\langle Nu\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}$ and $\langle \unicode[STIX]{x1D717}\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}$ depend upon the cell anisotropy ratio $\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$, which measures the ratio between the cell gap and height. We show that $\langle Nu\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}$ values in the high-Rayleigh regime decrease when $\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$ grows, supporting the field observations at the fracture scale. When $\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}\ll 1$, our results are in agreement with the scalings found using the Darcy model. The numerical results satisfy the theoretical relation $\langle Nu\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}=Ra\langle \unicode[STIX]{x1D717}\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}$, which is obtained from the model. This latter relation is valid for all values of Rayleigh number considered. The perturbative effects of cell aperture are observed only in the exponents of the scalings $\langle Nu\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}\sim Ra^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D716})}$ and $\langle \unicode[STIX]{x1D717}\rangle _{\unicode[STIX]{x1D70F}}\sim Ra^{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FE}(\unicode[STIX]{x1D716})-1}$.

JFM classification

Convection: Convection in porous media Low-Reynolds-number flows: Hele-Shaw flows
Type
JFM Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 864 , 10 April 2019 , pp. 746 - 767
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Copyright
© 2019 Cambridge University Press 

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