The upscaling of mechanical properties of fractured media requires the definition of an appropriate size for the Representative Elementary Volume (REV). Because of the stochastic nature of the fracture networks, the REV size is not deterministic and should be defined based on the variability of the equivalent properties. This work presents a new general methodology to define the size of the REV for the geometrical and elastic moduli of fractured media. Following previous works on heterogeneous materials, the decision criterion is based on the precision error that arises from the statistical theory of samples. The proposed methodology also relies on the use of the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) to assess the REV of fractured rocks. The CLT is shown to theoretically apply to both the geometrical and the elastic equivalent properties. From that observation, a general equation is drawn to predict the variance of an equivalent property for any REV candidate size, provided that the variance for one size only is known. These concepts are tested using numerous finite element simulations to obtain the distribution of the equivalent elastic moduli of two-dimensional samples containing two fracture networks previously studied for their elastic properties. These properties are confirmed to tend to a normal distribution, as stated by the CLT. Also, the standard deviations associated to the tested REV sizes were predicted with accuracy from the standard
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