The vaporization of a liquid front moving through a hot porous rock

We develop an analytical model to describe the generation of vapour as water moves through a hot porous rock, as occurs in hot, geothermal reservoirs. Typically the isotherms in the liquid lag behind the water-vapour interface and so water is supplied to the interface at the interface temperature. This temperature is lower than that in the rock far ahead of the interface. Therefore, as the hot porous rock is invaded with water, it cools and the heat released is used to vaporize some of the water. At low injection rates, vapour formed from the injected liquid may readily move ahead of the advancing liquid-vapour interface and so the interfacial pressure remains close to that in the far field ahead of the interface. The mass fraction that vaporizes is then limited by the superheat of the rock. For larger injection rates, the interfacial vapour pressure becomes considerably greater than that in the far field in order to drive the vapour ahead of the moving interface. As a result, the interfacial temperature increases. The associated reduction in the thermal energy available for vaporization results in a decrease in the mass fraction of vapour produced. Since the vapour is compressible, the motion of the vapour ahead of the interface is governed by a nonlinear diffusion equation. Therefore, the geometry of injection has an important effect upon the mass fraction of water that vaporizes. We show that with a constant supply of water from (i) a point source, the mass fraction of water which vaporizes increases towards the maximum permitted by the superheat of the rock; (ii) a line source, a similarity solution exists in which the mass fraction vaporizing is constant; and (iii) a planar source, the liquid-vapour interface steadily translates through the rock with a very small fraction of the injected water vaporizing.