dfnWorks: A discrete fracture network framework for modeling subsurface flow and transport

Hyman, Jeffrey D.; Karra, Satish; Makedonska, Nataliia; Gable, Carl W.; Painter, Scott L.; Viswanathan, Hari S.

doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2015.08.001

Title: dfnWorks: A discrete fracture network framework for modeling subsurface flow and transport

Journal Article · Sun Nov 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Computers and Geosciences

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2015.08.001· OSTI ID:1227449

Hyman, Jeffrey D. ^[1]; Karra, Satish ^[2]; Makedonska, Nataliia ^[2]; Gable, Carl W. ^[2]; Painter, Scott L. ^[3]; Viswanathan, Hari S. ^[2]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Computational Earth Science Group, Earth and Environmental Sciences Div. and Center for Nonlinear Studies
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States). Computational Earth Science Group, Earth and Environmental Sciences Div.
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Environmental Sciences Div.

DFNWorks is a parallalized computational suite to generate three-dimensional discrete fracture networks (DFN) and simulate flow and transport. Developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory over the past five years, it has been used to study flow and transport in fractured media at scales ranging from millimeters to kilometers. The networks are created and meshed using dfnGen, which combines fram (the feature rejection algorithm for meshing) methodology to stochastically generate three-dimensional DFNs on the basis of site specific data with the LaGriT meshing toolbox to create a high-quality computational mesh representation, specifically a conforming Delaunay triangulation suitable for high performance computing finite volume solvers, of the DFN in an intrinsically parallel fashion. Flow through the network is simulated in dfnFlow, which utilizes the massively parallel subsurface flow and reactive transport finite volume code pflotran. A Lagrangian approach to simulating transport through the DFN is adopted within dfnTrans, which is an extension of the walkabout particle tracking method to determine pathlines through the DFN. Example applications of this suite in the areas of nuclear waste repository science, hydraulic fracturing and CO2 sequestration are also included.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE

Grant/Contract Number:: 20140002DR; AC52-06NA25396; AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1227449

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1237620; OSTI ID: 1245319

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-15-21231; PII: S0098300415300261

Journal Information:: Computers and Geosciences, Vol. 84, Issue C; ISSN 0098-3004

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 221 works

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Title: dfnWorks: A discrete fracture network framework for modeling subsurface flow and transport

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