Transport of three-phase hyper-saline brines in porous media : Examples

This paper presents a number of applications of a new code which can simulate the transport of high temperature three-phase (gas, liquid, solid) hyper-saline fluids in a porous medium. The examples presented demonstrate that multiple phase changes occur as the fluid state evolves across the H2O–NaCl phase diagram. Multi-phase flows occur in a variety of situations, including a horizontal domain with fluid withdrawal, a vertical counter-flowing ‘salt-pipe’, and a horizontal domain with saturation shocks and expansion waves. The code is also used to simulate heat, water and salt flows in a large scale model (10’s of km) of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, New Zealand.