University of Zakho

College of Engineering
Petroleum Engineering Department

Drilling Engineering
Drilling Technology and Heat Transfer
technique for geothermal wells

Prepared by: Ahmed Amir Ali

Supervisor: Mr. Ali

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 “Edwin Drake the first well that was drilled, for the purpose of petroleum
production, in 1859 in Venango County, near Titusville in Pennsylvania”. (Department of
Environmental Protection, 2009). Although, some claims of prior art do exist, (e.g.
Germany in 1857 and Canada in 1858), Drake’s well at Titusville is still registered as the
first to be copied. He and his crew drilled in the manner of salt well drillers but used a
steam engine to power the drill and a piping to prevent borehole collapse, allowing for the
drill to penetrate further into the ground. This gave a progress of three feet (1m) per day.
However, they hit their first production depth of 69.5feet (21m) drilling from spring to
August 27. Since then, a variety of drilling mechanisms has been developed and modified
to sink a borehole into the ground. Each advantages and disadvantages, in terms of depth
to which it can drill, the type of sample retuhas its own rned, the cost involved and
penetration rate achieved.

A radical change occurred at the turn of the 20th century. The introduction of the rotary
drilling that displaced the then very popular cable tool drilling as a standard method for
reaching oil and gas ''traps'' down through the formation. Limitations such as; downtime
due to dull bits, lack of precise vertical or horizontal wells, formation fluid leakage during
drilling and waste created by drilling mud still persist with this state-of-the-art basic
mechanical method. In addition, drilling for petroleum and gas get increasingly difficult by
the day. Nowadays, we are required to drill as far as 25000feet (7620m), most times, in
deep stormy waters in order to get a satisfying volume. Hence the need for a more efficient
drilling technique still remains a constant goal.

Although, laser drilling experiments dates back to the 1960s, it is only recently that
experts started looking towards applying it to petroleum and gas drilling.

Over the years, many processes have been invented and modified. From the bamboo
rigs used by the Chinese, to cable tool used in the 19th century, down to the state-of-theart
rotary drilling and now to the expected laser drilling, the race is still on for the most
effective process to optimize cost, time and efficiency.

Geothermal energy is the thermal energy generated and stored in the Earth which can
be extracted and used [1]. Similar to other natural energy resources, such as sunlight, wind,

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rain, tides, and waves, geothermal energy is also considered as a renewable or semi-
renewable source of energy [2,3]. In geothermal systems, geothermal wells and heat
pumps are commonly known as geothermal Borehole Heat Exchanger (BHE).

To design geothermal BHEs, the thermal conductivity of the earth and the thermal
resistance of the well are required. The main part of a geothermal BHE is a U-shaped tube
in which the fluid enters the pipe on one side and then passes through the tube and
transfers heat to the other parts. So this single U-shaped BHE must be modeled and also its
thermal properties must be investigated and then other geometries should be studied to
obtain the best geometry and heat transfer efficiency. And also order to model geothermal
wells, the distance between the U-pipe and the surrounding area is stuffed by the fill
material, which is usually considered as a grout.In order to increase the heat transfer in the
inner part of the pipes, the fin with the given specifications must be used and the modeling
was carried out and the thermal parameters are compared for three BHE’s with different
geometries.

A geothermal BHE consists of an inlet pipe, an outlet pipe and a filler material that
each of them acts as a channel, which transmits heat in the axial direction and at the level
of contact with other components. In this way, the components of the BHE can be
considered as parallel pipes and generalized equations governing the parallel components
for the desired BHE.

Also in optimization, considering the design parameters and their result on the
Nusselt number and friction coefficient, it was observed that the Reynolds number has the
most effect among the parameters. As long as the Reynolds number increase, in addition to
increasing heat transfer, the pressure drop will also decrease.

Fine application in BHE ,In order to enhance the heat transfer (EHT) in the BHE, the
ring-shaped fins are used. The length of test section is half the length of the whole pipe.
This area is located at a distance of one quarter of the length of the pipe from its beginning

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References:

1. Finger, J.; Blankenship, D. Handbook of Best Practices for Geothermal Drilling; Sandia
National Laboratories: Albuquerque, NM, USA, 2010.

2. Sáez Blázquez, C.; Farfán Martín, A.; Martín Nieto, I.; Carrasco García, P.; Sánchez
Pérez, L.; González-Aguilera, D. Efficiency Analysis of the Main Components of a
Vertical Closed-Loop System in a Borehole Heat Exchanger. Energies 2017, 10, 201.

3.Congedo, P.M.; Lorusso, C.; De Giorgi, M.G.; Marti, R.; D’Agostino, D. Horizontal Air-
Ground Heat Exchanger Performance and Humidity Simulation by Computational Fluid
Dynamic Analysis. Energies 2016, 9, 930. [CrossRef]

4.Investigation of convective-conductive heat transfer in geothermal system. P. Jalilia ,

D.D. Ganjia,, S.S. Nourazarb. Document.

5. Advancement on Drilling Technology in Petroleum Industry. Akpedeye, Kelvin

Uruemu. 2010. Document.