Articles techniques et présentations

The problem is to understand how a geothermal field can evolve from a water dominated state into a vapor dominated one. A first answer to this question is given by a simplified mathematical model of the dynamics of a geothermal field in which the geothermal fluid is entirely composed by pure H2O. We considered a 1-D geometry and we developed a dynamic model that presents a clear interface between the gas phase and the liquid phase. Due to the process of evaporation or condensation, the interface changes its position over time and it is therefore modeled with a free boundary, whose dynamics is governed by Rankine-Hugoniot conditions. We obtained and solved a free boundary problem of Stefan type.