Modeling of cohesive crack growth in partially saturated porous media; a study on the permeability of cohesive fracture

Abstract

Modeling the water flow in cohesive fracture is a fundamental issue in the crack growth simulation of cracked concrete gravity dams and hydraulic fracture problems. In this paper, a mathematical model is presented for the analysis of fracture propagation in the semi-saturated porous media. The solid behavior incorporates a discrete cohesive fracture model, coupled with the flow in porous media through the fracture network. The double-nodded zero-thickness cohesive interface element is employed for the mixed mode fracture behavior in tension and contact behavior in compression. The modified crack permeability is applied in fracture propagation based on the data obtained from experimental results to implement the roughness of fracture walls.

An enriched FEM technique for modeling hydraulically driven cohesive fracture propagation in impermeable media with frictional natural faults: Numerical and experimental investigations

“…In this manner, the regularization of contact tractions results in an incrementally linearized contact constitutive relation for the contacting bodies as d t cont D D cont d u , in which D cont is the algorithmic contact tangent operator defined for the stick and slip conditions as (14) where k N and k T are the normal and tangential penalty parameters, respectively. Note that because of the inequality contact constraints (12), the contact problem is indeed kinematically nonlinear in which the active contact surface cont fault is not a priori known. In order to impose the inequality contact constraint (12) at each computational step, an active set strategy is employed here in conjunction with an iterative solution algorithm [46].…”

“…These analytical solutions have been used later as the benchmark problems for numerical simulations. There are also various numerical models developed in the literature mostly based on the FEM to address more complex physical processes involved in the flow-deformation analysis of fractured/fracturing porous media, e.g., [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. An extended FEM (X-FEM) was presented by Réthoré et al [15,16] for numerical simulation of the fluid flow in fractured porous media and fracturing unsaturated porous media with passive gas phase, respectively.…”

Hydro‐mechanical modeling of cohesive crack propagation in multiphase porous media using the extended finite element method

“…The present paper focuses on the hydro‐mechanical modeling of two‐phase fluid flow in deforming partially saturated porous media containing propagating cohesive cracks, which has practical applications in a broad range of engineering areas. In the literature, the topic of fluid flow in fractured/fracturing porous media has been dealt with in different ways: Boone and Ingraffea presented a numerical procedure for the simulation of hydraulically driven fracture propagation in poroelastic materials combining the finite element method with the finite difference method; Schrefler et al and Secchi et al modeled the hydraulic cohesive crack growth in fully saturated porous media using the finite element method with mesh adaptation; Segura and Carol proposed a hydro‐mechanical formulation for fully saturated geomaterials with pre‐existing discontinuities based on the finite element method with zero‐thickness interface elements; Khoei et al and Barani et al presented the dynamic analysis of cohesive fracture propagation in fully saturated and partially saturated porous media with passive gas phase, respectively. Recently, the fluid flow in fractured fully saturated porous media and fracturing unsaturated porous media with passive gas phase was presented by Rethore et al in and , respectively, using the extended finite element method, which is now extended to three‐phase porous media.…”

A fully coupled element‐free Galerkin model for hydro‐mechanical analysis of advancement of fluid‐driven fractures in porous media

“…On this basis, the present example has been used for verification of hydraulic fracturing models that are mostly based on finite element (FE) or XFE numerical methods .…”

“…On this basis, the numerical models developed by Boone and Ingraffea , Pak , Simoni and Secchi , Schrefler et al , Secchi et al , Lobao et al , Khoei et al , Barani et al , Sarris and Papanastasiou , Carrier and Granet , Mohammadnejad and Khoei , and Khoei et al are examples of the attempts made to treat the medium surrounding the fracture as a porous material and take the effect of solid deformation‐pore fluid flow interaction on the hydraulic fracture behavior into account.…”