Surface Roughness Effects on Fluid Transport Through a Natural Rock Fracture

Conference · Tue Apr 01 04:00:00 EDT 2008

OSTI ID:937231

Crandall, D M; Ahmadi, Goodarz; Smith, D H

Fluid flow through rock fractures can be orders of magnitude faster than through the adjacent low-permeability rock. Understanding how fluid moves through these pathways is important for the prediction of sequestered CO2 transport in geologic reservoirs. Reservoir-scale, discrete-fracture simulators use simplified models of flow through fractures to determine transport properties in complex fracture networks. A high level of approximation is required in these reservoir-scale simulations due to the number of fractures within the domain of interest and because of the limited amount of information that can be obtained from geophysical well-logs (Long et al. (1996)). For this study, flow simulations through a CT-scanned fracture were performed to evaluate different fluid transport parameters that are important in geological flow analysis. The ‘roughness’ of the fracture was varied to determine the effect of the bumpy fracture walls on the fluid flow. The permeability and effective aperture were determined for flow under a constant pressure head. The fracture roughness is shown to dramatically reduce the flow through the fracture, and various relations are described.

• Research Organization: National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), Pittsburgh, PA, Morgantown, WV, and Albany, OR
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE - Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• OSTI ID: 937231
• Report Number(s): DOE/NETL-IR-2008-129; NETL-TPR-2139
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
58 GEOSCIENCES
CARBON DIOXIDE
CARBON SEQUESTRATION
ENVIRONMENTAL TRANSPORT
FLUID FLOW
GEOLOGIC FRACTURES
PARAMETRIC ANALYSIS
PERMEABILITY
RESERVOIR ROCK
ROUGHNESS
SIMULATORS