Related papers: From invasion percolation to flow in rock fracture…
A multi-scale scheme for the invasion percolation of rock fracture networks with heterogeneous fracture aperture fields is proposed. Inside fractures, fluid transport is calculated on the finest scale and found to be localized in channels…
Fractures form the main pathways for flow in the subsurface within low-permeability rock. For this reason, accurately predicting flow and transport in fractured systems is vital for improving the performance of subsurface applications.…
Structural and topological information play a key role in modeling flow and transport through fractured rock in the subsurface. Discrete fracture network (DFN) computational suites such as dfnWorks are designed to simulate flow and…
Experimental two-phase invasion percolation flow patterns were observed in hydrophobic micro-porous networks designed to model fuel cell specific porous media. In order to mimic the operational conditions encountered in the porous…
Simulations of fluid flow in naturally fractured rocks have implications for several subsurface applications, including energy storage and extraction, and waste storage. We are interested in flow in discrete fracture networks, which…
Subsurface applications including geothermal, geological carbon sequestration, oil and gas, etc., typically involve maximizing either the extraction of energy or the storage of fluids. Characterizing the subsurface is extremely complex due…
We performed a set of numerical simulations to characterize the interplay of fracture network topology, upscaling, and mesh refinement on flow and transport properties in fractured porous media. We generated a set of generic…
We investigate the problem of fluid injection at constant pressure in a 2D Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) with randomly oriented and uniformly distributed frictionally-stable fractures. We show that this problem shares similarities with…
The paper presents a numerical method for simulating flow and mechanics in fractured rock. The governing equations that couple the effects in the rock mass and in the fractures are obtained using the discrete fracture-matrix approach. The…
Applications of Discrete Fracture Network (DFN) modeling are becoming increasingly prevalent in engineering analyses involving fractured rock masses. For example, kinematic evaluations of slope or underground excavation stability and the…
The present work deals with the numerical resolution of coupled 3D-2D problems arising from the simulation of fluid flow in fractured porous media modeled via the Discrete Fracture and Matrix (DFM) model. According to the DFM model,…
The geometry and connectivity of fractures exert a strong influence on the flow and transport properties of fracture networks. We present a novel approach to stochastically generate three-dimensional discrete networks of connected fractures…
Recent developments in hydraulic fracturing (fracking) have enabled the recovery of large quantities of natural gas and oil from old, low permeability shales. These developments include a change from low-volume, high-viscosity fluid…
We present an advanced algorithm for the determination of watershed lines on Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), which is based on the iterative application of Invasion Percolation (IIP). The main advantage of our method over previosly…
Modeling gas flow through fractures of subsurface rock is a particularly challenging problem because of the heterogeneous nature of the material. High-fidelity simulations using discrete fracture network (DFN) models are one methodology for…
Shear dilation based hydraulic stimulations enable exploitation of geothermal energy from reservoirs with inadequate initial permeability. While contributing to enhancing the reservoir's permeability, hydraulic stimulation processes may…
We present a comprehensive workflow to simulate single-phase flow and transport in fractured porous media using the discrete fracture matrix approach. The workflow has three primary parts: (1) a method for conforming mesh generation of and…
The function of a real network depends not only on the reliability of its own components, but is affected also by the simultaneous operation of other real networks coupled with it. Robustness of systems composed of interdependent network…
Simulating the flow of two fluid phases in porous media is a challenging task, especially when fractures are included in the simulation. Fractures may have highly heterogeneous properties compared to the surrounding rock matrix,…
Upscaling unsaturated flow in fractured rock remains challenging because fractures and matrix often exhibit sharply contrasting hydraulic behaviors across saturation states. Here, we demonstrate that unsaturated flow undergoes a transition…