Geothermal systems simulation: A case study

Geothermal reservoir simulation is a key step for developing sustainable and efficient strategies for the exploitation of geothermal resources. It is applied in the assessment of several areas of reservoir engineering, such as reservoir performance and re-injection programs, pressure decline in depletion, phase transition conditions, and natural evolution of hydrothermal convection systems. Fluid flow and heat transfer in rock masses, fluid-rock chemical interaction and rock mass deformation are some of the processes addressed in reservoir modelling. The case study of the Las Tres Virgenes (LTV) geothermal field (10 MWe), Baja California Sur, Mexico is presented. Three dimensional (3D) natural state simulations were carried out from emplacement and cooling of two spherical magma chambers using a conductive approach. A conceptual model of the volcanic system was developed on a lithostratigraphic and geochronological basis. Magma chamber volumes were established from eruptive volumes estimations. The thermophysical properties of the medium were assumed to correspond to the dominant rock in each lithological unit as an initial value, and further calibration was made considering histograms of experimentally obtained thermophysical properties of rocks. As the boundaries of the model lie far from the thermal anomaly, we assumed specified temperature boundaries. A Finite Volume (FV) numerical scheme was implemented in a Fortran 90 code to solve the heat equation. Static formation temperatures from well logs were used for validation of the numerical results. Good agreement was observed in those geothermal wells dominated by conductive heat transfer. For other wells, however, it is clear that conduction alone cannot explain observed behaviour, three-dimensional convective models are being implemented for future multiphysics simulations

Calculation of renormalized viscosity and resistivity in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence

A self-consistent renormalization (RG) scheme has been applied to nonhelical magnetohydrodynamic turbulence with normalized cross helicity $\sigma_c =0$ and $\sigma_c \to 1$. Kolmogorov's 5/3 powerlaw is assumed in order to compute the renormalized parameters. It has been shown that the RG fixed point is stable for $d \ge d_c \approx 2.2$. The renormalized viscosity $\nu^*$ and resistivity $\eta^*$ have been calculated, and they are found to be positive for all parameter regimes. For $\sigma_c=0$ and large Alfv\'{e}n ratio (ratio of kinetic and magnetic energies) $r_A$, $\nu^*=0.36$ and $\eta^*=0.85$. As $r_A$ is decreased, $\nu^*$ increases and $\eta^*$ decreases, untill $r_A \approx 0.25$ where both $\nu^*$ and $\eta^*$ are approximately zero. For large $d$, both $\nu^*$ and $\eta^*$ vary as $d^{-1/2}$. The renormalized parameters for the case $\sigma_c \to 1$ are also reported.Comment: 19 pages REVTEX, 3 ps files (Phys. Plasmas, v8, 3945, 2001

Review of the field, analytical and statistical methods used in the determination and handling of rare-earth elements in soil-plant system

El presente artículo es una revisión detallada de estudios científicos publicados que tratan el tema relacionado con la determinación de los elementos de las tierras raras (REEs) en el sistema suelo-planta. Los estudios han sido llevados a cabo principalmente en países europeos y asiáticos. Cabe señalar que la investigación en los países latinoamericanos es muy escasa; sin embargo, es creciente el interés de analizar la aportación de estos elementos al suelo y la planta, lo cual se debe a la aplicación de fertilizantes que contienen dosis elevadas de estos elementos en su composición. Diversas técnicas de muestreo, experimentación y análisis han sido empleadas para la determinación de los REEs. No obstante, se considera que el manejo de los datos ha sido incorrecto estadísticamente. El contenido del presente artículo aborda: (i) las generalidades de los REEs; (ii) el análisis de la bibliografía disponible con el fin de conocer las metodologías de muestreo y análisis más utilizadas en 37 artículos en total, señalando algunos puntos que se consideran todavía deficientes; (iii) dos ejemplos de la aplicación de técnicas estadísticas (intervalo de confianza de la media y pruebas de significancia de la relación F de Fisher y t de Student) utilizando datos reportados en dos artículos. Los resultados mostraron, con los datos del primer artículo analizado, que: a) no se aplicó una metodología estadística para evaluar la calidad de datos; b) al aplicar estadística se encontró que existen diferencias sistemáticas entre los datos determinados en el laboratorio y los certificados. En el segundo artículo analizado se demostró, mediante pruebas de significancia, que existen diferencias significativas en las medias de Ce y Eu (los dos elementos tomados como ejemplos) en las plantas de un sitio a otro.This study concerns a detailed review of published papers on rare-earth elements (REEs) in soil-plant system. Such studies have been carried out mainly in Europe and Asia and are relatively scarse in Latin American countries. Nevertheless, the interest in evaluating the uptake of REEs in soil-plant system is continually increasing. This is due to the fact that fertilizers contain high concentrations of these elements. Different techniques have been used for sampling, experimental work and REE determinations. However, we consider that the data handling has been rather statistically deficient. This review elaborates on the following points: (i) general characteristics of the REEs; (ii) bibliographical review of sampling and analytical techniques actually used in 37 papers with an emphasis on the statistical deficiencies; (iii) examples of the application of statistical methods (confidence interval of the mean and significance tests of Fisher F and Student t) based on two of the compiled papers. The first application showed that the original authors did not apply any statistical methodology to evaluate their data quality and that there are systematic differences between the data analyzed in their laboratory and the certified values of the reference material. The application of significance tests to the data from the second paper demonstrated that there are significant differences in the mean values of Ce and Eu (only these two elements were exemplified) in plants from different sites.Fil: Hernández-Martínez, J. Lucero. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Instituto de GeofísicaFil: Verma, Surendra P.. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Centro de Investigación de Energí

Simple Pendulum Revisited

We describe a 8085 microprocessor interface developed to make reliable time period measurements. The time period of each oscillation of a simple pendulum was measured using this interface. The variation of the time period with increasing oscillation was studied for the simple harmonic motion (SHM) and for large angle initial displacements (non-SHM). The results underlines the importance of the precautions which the students are asked to take while performing the pendulum experiment.Comment: 17 pages with 10 figure

Critical Cooperation Range to Improve Spatial Network Robustness

A robust worldwide air-transportation network (WAN) is one that minimizes the number of stranded passengers under a sequence of airport closures. Building on top of this realistic example, here we address how spatial network robustness can profit from cooperation between local actors. We swap a series of links within a certain distance, a cooperation range, while following typical constraints of spatially embedded networks. We find that the network robustness is only improved above a critical cooperation range. Such improvement can be described in the framework of a continuum transition, where the critical exponents depend on the spatial correlation of connected nodes. For the WAN we show that, except for Australia, all continental networks fall into the same universality class. Practical implications of this result are also discussed