Coupling geomechanics with flow and reactive transport in PFLOTRAN for subsurface applications

With increase in the number of emerging subsurface applications that involve several coupled processes such as thermal, hydrological, mechanical and chemical, there is a need for computational models that are capable of simulating these processes. Some of such applications include carbon sequestration, nuclear waste disposal, enhanced geothermal systems, degradation of permafrost in the Arctic, etc. In this work, the approach to couple geomechanics with non-isothermal flow and reactive transport in PFLOTRAN is described. PFLOTRAN (http://www.pflotran.org) is a massively parallel open-source code originally developed for multiphase, non-isothermal flow and reactive transport. Details regarding the coupling algorithm, parallel framework and parallel performance is shown. Example simulations using this new multi-physics capability are also presented.