Full-field experimental investigation of heat transfer and thermoelastic response during steam injection into coal seam borehole
Abstract
The accurate determination of thermal influence range during steam injection has long remained challenging in coal seam thermal stimulation, limiting the optimization of enhanced coalbed methane recovery strategies. Existing studies are primarily focused on the temperature variation of coal, while the thermal influence range and the spatial coupling between heat transfer and coal deformation have not been systematically quantified. This study presents a full-field experimental analysis of heat transfer and thermoelastic response during steam injection into a large-scale coal specimen with a prefabricated borehole. Infrared thermography and digital image correlation were employed to capture the spatiotemporal evolution of coal surface temperature and strain distributions, enabling the direct observation of their spatial correlation. The results underscore that saturated steam transfers energy predominantly through latent heat release, producing relatively uniform heating on coal, whereas superheated steam is dominated by sensible heat transfer and results in more heterogeneous temperature and strain distributions. Increasing the steam temperature or flow rate alone produce limited expansion of the thermal influence range. In contrast, enlarging the effective heat transfer area through fracture enhancement significantly promotes thermal propagation. A clear spatial correspondence between temperature and strain fields was identified, indicating that coal deformation is primarily governed by thermally induced stress within the observed deformation range. This paper provides a quantitative framework for the evaluation of steam-induced thermal influence range and thermoelastic coupling at the specimen scale, with the results providing a mechanistic basis for optimizing steam-assisted coal seam stimulation techniques.
Document Type: Original article
Cited as: Li, Y., Zhai, C., Zhang, L., Li, H., Liu, X. Full-field experimental investigation of heat transfer and thermoelastic response during steam injection into coal seam borehole. Advances in Geo-Energy Research, 2026, 20(1): 27-42. https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2026.04.03
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46690/ager.2026.04.03Keywords:
Steam injection, coalbed methane, digital image correlation, heat transfer, thermal stressReferences
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