| Abstract |
The research program currently underway in the Department of Civil Engineering at Princeton University can be subdivided into five separate interacting components. Each component addresses a specific problem encountered in the numerical simulation of geothermal reservoirs. In this summary, the components will be examined independently although in fact there are many facets of the work which overlap and thereby provide a foundation for the exchange of ideas between individuals. The natural extension of the two-dimensional single phase areal model of the Wairakei reservoir is the fully three-dimensional problem. Although the development of a three-dimensional finite element energy transport code was reatively straighforward, the cataloguing, organization and manipulation of the large quantities of pertinent field data was more difficult. In preparing the input data trend surfaces of the important hydrological and geologica parameters were generated. In this way the required information for each finite element node can be determined readily. The simulator is currently operational and the last elements of data are being prepared. |