Beschreibung
Exploration for deep-geothermal resources is still a costly and high risk operation. The research association “Geothermal Energy and High Performance Drilling Research Program, gebo” was founded to improve the cost effectiveness of geothermal energy production in particular by developing new drilling concepts for deep geological layers. A mono-diameter borehole casing concept is developed to achieve this ambitious aim. To accomplish this, a special type of casing is essential, structured from folded tubulars for expandable casing applications featuring clover-like cross sections and expandable to a cylindrical form when the casing is at its downhole position. A smaller borehole volume and a reduction of drilling time and casing related costs are the main advantages of this method compared to conventional drilling. Design, material selection and realization of the folded tubulars take place at the Institut für Werkstoffkunde (Materials Science). The Evaluations of the results are based on residual stress Analysis and the measurement of the geometry after each Deformation step at the Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (IFW).
