GOLEM is a modelling platform for thermal-hydraulic-mechanical and non-reactive chemical processes in fractured and faulted porous media. GOLEM makes use of the flexible, object-oriented numerical framework MOOSE (developed at the Idaho National Laboratories), which provides a high-level interface to state of the art nonlinear solver technology. In GOLEM, the governing equations of groundwater flow, heat and mass transport, and rock deformation are solved in a weak sense (by classical Newton–Raphson or by free Jacobian inexact Newton-Krylow schemes) on an underlying unstructured mesh. Non-linear feedback among the active processes are enforced by considering evolving fluid and rock properties depending on the thermo-hydro-mechanical state of the system and the local structure, i.e. degree of connectivity, of the fracture system. More information on the governing equations, their derivation and implementation together with a list of synthetic and real case applications can be found in Cacace and Jacquey (2017) - also available from the dedicated GitHub repository.

Versions

• The version on GitHub (linked to the DOI 10.5281/zenodo.999401) is a frozen version, but kept up-to-date from the original publication
• Any new development is maintained in a GitLab project. In order to get access to the GitLab repository, please contact Dr. Mauro Cacace.

For more information see GOLEM at Helmholtz RSD.

User group

International user community from geosciences.

Features

GOLEM in a nutshell:

• Complete open source workflow from geologic data integration, pre-processing and Finite Element meshing (MeshIt software, Cacace and Blöcher (2015)), dynamic forward modelling and post-visualization (Paraview)
• Object-orientation: flexible modular structure within easy to be extended modules by the user
• Geometric agnosticism: 1D/2D/3D Finite Elements and their combinations within single applications with no additional coding from the user required
• Hybrid parallelism: multi-threading and MPI
• Proved scalability on HPC architectures: JUWELS cluster Module at JSC
• Saturated single phase fluid flow in fractured Porous Media (FPM)
• Heat transfer (conduction and advection with or withour internal buoyant flow) in FPM
• Rock mechanics porous matrix - linear and non-linear elastic, plastic, visco-elastic, isotropic and anisotropic damage rheology
• Fracture mechanics - elasto-plastic, frictional (rate and state) lower dimensional interface elements
• Non reactive chemical transport (diffusion and dispersion)
• Ongoing activities - reactive chemistry coupling via a dedicated interface to existing open source software
• Proof of concept for EGS analysis - sustainability of induced fracture and exploitability of geothermal reservoirs.