Seminar

Thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) coupling prevails in many underground engineering activities, such as geothermal exploitation, nuclear waste disposal and CO₂ geological storage. Numerical simulation is a very effective and economic approach to study THM coupling. From the numerical perspective, THM coupling is governed by a system of partial differential equations (PDEs) that are derived from stress equilibrium, mass and energy conservations. Therefore, THM coupling simulation boils down to solving simultaneous PDEs. In the case of simulating 3D field-scale models, the computational cost is huge, which requires efficient and stable numerical algorithms. In this study, a number of different solution schemes are developed to investigate the key factors that influence code performance regarding THM coupling. Three sets of codes, namely DDFS^3D, Hybrid-THM and HENGYI are developed, and among them, DDFS^3D is released as open-source. The research outcomes of this study are of great value in terms of developing tailored codes to perform large-scale THM coupling simulations. 

Additional information: Mr CUI Xin, u3005741@hku.hk