A Modified Cubic Law for single-phase saturated laminar flow in rough rock fractures

Wang, Zhihe; Xu, Chaoshui; Dowd, P. A.

doi:10.1016/j.ijrmms.2017.12.002

Cited by 62 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The most common case of modelling flow in fractures is for incompressible singlephase flow at steady state, with fracture walls often being considered to have no-slip and no-flow features [9,[78][79][80][81][82][83]. The governing equations for this scenario are the threedimensional (3-D) Navier-Stokes equations (NSE) with mass conservation [6,8,84], as given by:…”

Section: Fluid Flow Modelling In a Single Fracture Considering Roughnmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Different fracture intersections and their influences on fluid flow further complicate the issues [5]. There are numerous published works in which different correction factors were used for the roughness of fracture walls and for non-linear flow behaviours at high Reynolds numbers [1,[6][7][8]. Even with this two-dimensional simplification, the solution can still become intractable if there is a significant number of fractures in the system, which is often the case in large-scale engineering applications such as groundwater flow modelling, enhanced geothermal systems, or in-situ recovery of minerals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Modelling of Coupled Hydro-Thermo-Chemical Fluid Flow through Rock Fracture Networks and Its Applications

Dong

Wang

et al. 2021

Geosciences

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Most rock masses contain natural fractures. In many engineering applications, a detailed understanding of the characteristics of fluid flow through a fractured rock mass is critically important for design, performance analysis, and uncertainty/risk assessment. In this context, rock fractures and fracture networks play a decisive role in conducting fluid through the rock mass as the permeability of fractures is in general orders of magnitudes greater than that of intact rock matrices, particularly in hard rock settings. This paper reviews the modelling methods developed over the past four decades for the generation of representative fracture networks in rock masses. It then reviews some of the authors’ recent developments in numerical modelling and experimental studies of linear and non-linear fluid flow through fractures and fracture networks, including challenging issues such as fracture wall roughness, aperture variations, flow tortuosity, fracture intersection geometry, fracture connectivity, and inertia effects at high Reynolds numbers. Finally, it provides a brief review of two applications of methods developed by the authors: the Habanero coupled hydro-thermal heat extraction model for fractured reservoirs and the Kapunda in-situ recovery of copper minerals from fractures, which is based on a coupled hydro-chemical model.

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Section: Fluid Flow Modelling In a Single Fracture Considering Roughnmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modelling of Coupled Hydro-Thermo-Chemical Fluid Flow through Rock Fracture Networks and Its Applications

Dong

Wang

et al. 2021

Geosciences

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“…The JRC of a surface can be determined by various methods, making it a very popular quantity to be used in laboratory studies as well as in numerical simulations (e.g., [64][65][66]). Additionally, the JRC value can be linked to the Z 2 value for a quantitative determination (e.g., [30]).…”

Section: Characterization Of Fracture Roughnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparison of Surface Roughness and Transport Processes of Sawed, Split and Natural Sandstone Fractures

Frank

Heinze

Wohnlich

2020

Water

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In single fractures, dispersion is often linked to the roughness of the fracture surfaces and the resulting local aperture distribution. To experimentally investigate the effects of diverse fracture types and surface morphologies in sandstones, three fractures were considered: those generated by sawing and splitting, and a natural sedimentary fracture. The fracture surface morphologies were digitally analyzed and the hydraulic and transport parameters of the fractures were determined from Darcy and the tracer tests using a fit of a continuous time random walk (CTRW) and a classical advection–dispersion equation (ADE). While the sawed specimen with the smoothest surface had the smallest dispersivity, the natural fracture has the largest dispersivity due to strong anisotropy and non-matching fracture surfaces, although its surface roughness is comparable to the split specimen. The parameterization of the CTRW and of the ADE agree well for β > 4 of the truncated power law. For smaller values of β, non-Fickian transport processes are dominant. Channeling effects are observable in the tracer breakthrough curves. The transport behavior in the fractures is controlled by multiple constraints such as several surface roughness parameters and the equivalent hydraulic aperture.

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“…However, the fractures in natural rocks have complex geometry and widely deviate from the parallel plate model. The cubic law should, therefore, be tuned to incorporate more factors that influence fluid flow [7,13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitative Study of the Geometrical and Hydraulic Characteristics of a Single Rock Fracture

Jiang

Min

2019

Energies

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Three-dimensional images of fractured rocks can be acquired by an X-ray micro-CT scanning technique, which allows researchers to investigate the ‘true’ inner void structure of a natural fracture without destroying the core. The 3D fractures in images can be characterised by measuring morphological properties on both fracture apertures and its trend surface, like the medial surface, that reveals the undulation of fracture planes. In a previous paper, we have proposed a novel method to generate fracture models stochastically. Based on a large number of such fracture models, in this work a modified factor was proposed for improving the performance of the cubic law by incorporating the flow-dominant characteristics, including two parameters (aperture roughness and spatial correlation length) for fracture apertures and two (surface undulation coefficient and spatial correlation length) for fracture trend-surface. We assess and validate the modified cubic law by applying it to natural fractures in images that have varying apertures and extremely bended trend-surfaces, with the permeabilities calculated by a Lattice Boltzmann Method as ‘ground truths’.

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A Modified Cubic Law for single-phase saturated laminar flow in rough rock fractures

Cited by 62 publications

References 33 publications

Modelling of Coupled Hydro-Thermo-Chemical Fluid Flow through Rock Fracture Networks and Its Applications

Modelling of Coupled Hydro-Thermo-Chemical Fluid Flow through Rock Fracture Networks and Its Applications

Comparison of Surface Roughness and Transport Processes of Sawed, Split and Natural Sandstone Fractures

Quantitative Study of the Geometrical and Hydraulic Characteristics of a Single Rock Fracture

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