Numerical simulations examining the relationship between wall-roughness and fluid flow in rock fractures

Journal Article · Thu Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2010 · International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmms.2010.03.015· OSTI ID:1014928

Crandall, Dustin ^[1]; Bromhal, Grant ^[1]; Karpyn, Zuleima T. ^[2]

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1. National Energy Technology Lab. (NETL), Morgantown, WV (United States)
2. Pennsylvania State Univ., State College, PA (United States)

Understanding how fracture wall-roughness affects fluid flow is important when modeling many subsurface transport problems. Computed tomography scanning provides a unique view of rock fractures, allowing the measurement of fracture wall-roughness, without destroying the initial rock sample. For this computational fluid dynamics study, we used several different methods to obtain three-dimensional meshes of a computed tomography scanned fracture in Berea sandstone. These volumetric meshes had different wall-roughnesses, which we characterized using the Joint Roughness Coefficient and the fractal dimension of the fracture profiles. We then related these macroscopic roughness parameters to the effective flow through the fractures, as determined from Navier-Stokes numerical models. Thus, we used our fracture meshes to develop relationships between the observed roughness properties of the fracture geometries and flow parameters that are of importance for modeling flow through fractures in field scale models. Fractures with high Joint Roughness Coefficients and fractal dimensions were shown to exhibit tortuous flow paths, be poorly characterized by the mean geometric aperture, and have a fracture transmissivity 35 times smaller than the smoother modeled fracture flows.

• Research Organization: National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Assistant Secretary for Fossil Energy (FE)
• OSTI ID: 1014928
• Report Number(s): NETL-TPR--2519
• Journal Information: International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, Journal Name: International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences Journal Issue: 5 Vol. 47; ISSN 1365-1609
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES
CT SCANNING
FRACTURE ROUGHNESS
NAVIER-STOKES
ROCK FRACTURES