Comparative Experiment of Wellbore Self-Circulation Heat Mining Capacity with Different Heat-Carrying Fluids

Based on the principle of wellbore self-circulation heat mining, the evaluation experiments of local wellbore self-circulation heat exchange laws and influencing factors were carried out. Water, SCCO2, R134a, and heat transfer oil were screened as the heat-carrying fluids. The heat exchange laws and heat mining capacity of these four heat carrying fluids were analyzed and compared, and their heat mining rates at the field scale were estimated using the similarity criterion method according to the experimental results. The results show that R134a and heat transfer oil can obtain the largest outlet temperature and the largest heat loss ratio, while the water can achieve a higher heat mining rate and a larger convective heat transfer coefficient than the other three fluids. The heat mining capacity of CO2 is significantly affected by the injection pressure. It is necessary to optimize the injection pressure larger than critical point to achieve the best heat mining performance. When the water is selected as the heat-carrying fluid, the heat mining rate can reach more than 1 MW if a horizontal wellbore with a length of 2000m is applied for wellbore self-circulation at the field scale.