Measurement of Fracture Aperture Fields Using Ttransmitted Light: An Evaluation of Measurement Errors and their Influence on Simulations of Flow and Transport through a Single Fracture
- Sandia National Laboratories
Understanding of single and multi-phase flow and transport in fractures can be greatly enhanced through experimentation in transparent systems (analogs or replicas) where light transmission techniques yield quantitative measurements of aperture, solute concentration, and phase saturation fields. Here we quanti@ aperture field measurement error and demonstrate the influence of this error on the results of flow and transport simulations (hypothesized experimental results) through saturated and partially saturated fractures. find that precision and accuracy can be balanced to greatly improve the technique and We present a measurement protocol to obtain a minimum error field. Simulation results show an increased sensitivity to error as we move from flow to transport and from saturated to partially saturated conditions. Significant sensitivity under partially saturated conditions results in differences in channeling and multiple-peaked breakthrough curves. These results emphasize the critical importance of defining and minimizing error for studies of flow and transpoti in single fractures.
- Research Organization:
- Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), Albuquerque, NM, and Livermore, CA
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- DOE Contract Number:
- AC04-94AL85000
- OSTI ID:
- 7038
- Report Number(s):
- SAND99-1135J; ON: DE00007038
- Journal Information:
- Water Resources Research, Journal Name: Water Resources Research
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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