Modelling coupled fluid flow and heat transfer in fractured reservoirs: description of a 3D benchmark numerical case

One challenge of modelling coupled fluid flow and heat transfer within geological reservoirs lies in representing the geometry of fractures and to formulate the physics of their hydraulic behaviours. This contribution presents a 3D case to be used to test the ability of simulators in solving for such issues. The reliability of the study is tested against three simulators (GOLEM, OpenGeosys, and Feflow), which integrates fractures as single-nodded lower dimensional elements embedded in the rock matrix. Comparing the results we can conclude on the validity of the synthetic model as a code benchmarking case for simulators adopting a similar approach.