Characterizing the impact of particle behavior at fracture intersections in three-dimensional discrete fracture networks
Abstract
We characterize the influence of different intersection mixing rules for particle tracking simulations on transport properties through three-dimensional discrete fracture networks. It is too computationally burdensome to explicitly resolve all fluid dynamics within a large three-dimensional fracture network. In discrete fracture network (DFN) models, mass transport at fracture intersections is modeled as a subgrid scale process based on a local Péclet number. The two most common mass transfer mixing rules are (1) complete mixing, where diffusion dominates mass transfer, and (2) streamline routing, where mass follows pathlines through an intersection. Although it is accepted that mixing rules impact local mass transfer through single intersections, the effect of the mixing rule on transport at the fracture network scale is still unresolved. Through the use of explicit particle tracking simulations, we study transport through a quasi-two-dimensional lattice network and a three-dimensional network whose fracture radii follow a truncated power-law distribution. We find that the impact of the mixing rule is a function of the initial particle injection condition, the heterogeneity of the velocity field, and the geometry of the network. Furthermore, our particle tracking simulations show that the mixing rule can particularly impact concentrations on secondary flow pathways. As a result, wemore »
- Authors:
-
[2];
[2];
[2]
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Univ. of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN (United States)
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Univ. of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1495161
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1492111
- Report Number(s):
- LA-UR-18-29382
Journal ID: ISSN 2470-0045; PLEEE8
- Grant/Contract Number:
- 89233218CNA000001; 20180621ECR; 20170103DR; AC52-06NA25396
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Physical Review E
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 99; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2470-0045
- Publisher:
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; Earth Sciences
Citation Formats
Sherman, Thomas James, Hyman, Jeffrey De'Haven, Bolster, Diogo, Makedonska, Nataliia, and Srinivasan, Gowri. Characterizing the impact of particle behavior at fracture intersections in three-dimensional discrete fracture networks. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.99.013110.
Sherman, Thomas James, Hyman, Jeffrey De'Haven, Bolster, Diogo, Makedonska, Nataliia, & Srinivasan, Gowri. Characterizing the impact of particle behavior at fracture intersections in three-dimensional discrete fracture networks. United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.99.013110
Sherman, Thomas James, Hyman, Jeffrey De'Haven, Bolster, Diogo, Makedonska, Nataliia, and Srinivasan, Gowri. Fri .
"Characterizing the impact of particle behavior at fracture intersections in three-dimensional discrete fracture networks". United States. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.99.013110. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1495161.
@article{osti_1495161,
title = {Characterizing the impact of particle behavior at fracture intersections in three-dimensional discrete fracture networks},
author = {Sherman, Thomas James and Hyman, Jeffrey De'Haven and Bolster, Diogo and Makedonska, Nataliia and Srinivasan, Gowri},
abstractNote = {We characterize the influence of different intersection mixing rules for particle tracking simulations on transport properties through three-dimensional discrete fracture networks. It is too computationally burdensome to explicitly resolve all fluid dynamics within a large three-dimensional fracture network. In discrete fracture network (DFN) models, mass transport at fracture intersections is modeled as a subgrid scale process based on a local Péclet number. The two most common mass transfer mixing rules are (1) complete mixing, where diffusion dominates mass transfer, and (2) streamline routing, where mass follows pathlines through an intersection. Although it is accepted that mixing rules impact local mass transfer through single intersections, the effect of the mixing rule on transport at the fracture network scale is still unresolved. Through the use of explicit particle tracking simulations, we study transport through a quasi-two-dimensional lattice network and a three-dimensional network whose fracture radii follow a truncated power-law distribution. We find that the impact of the mixing rule is a function of the initial particle injection condition, the heterogeneity of the velocity field, and the geometry of the network. Furthermore, our particle tracking simulations show that the mixing rule can particularly impact concentrations on secondary flow pathways. As a result, we relate these local differences in concentration to reactive transport and show that streamline routing increases the average mixing rate in DFN simulations.},
doi = {10.1103/PhysRevE.99.013110},
journal = {Physical Review E},
number = 1,
volume = 99,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Jan 25 00:00:00 EST 2019},
month = {Fri Jan 25 00:00:00 EST 2019}
}
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
Other availability
Search WorldCat to find libraries that may hold this journal
Cited by: 14 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science
Web of Science
Save to My Library
You must Sign In or Create an Account in order to save documents to your library.
Works referenced in this record:
Scaling of fracture systems in geological media
journal, August 2001
- Bonnet, E.; Bour, O.; Odling, N. E.
- Reviews of Geophysics, Vol. 39, Issue 3
Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies
journal, August 2004
- Pacala, S.
- Science, Vol. 305, Issue 5686
Geothermal energy technology and current status: an overview
journal, January 2002
- Barbier, Enrico
- Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Vol. 6, Issue 1-2
Understanding hydraulic fracturing: a multi-scale problem
journal, October 2016
- Hyman, J. D.; Jiménez-Martínez, J.; Viswanathan, H. S.
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, Vol. 374, Issue 2078
Stochastic simulation of radionuclide migration in discretely fractured rock near the Äspö Hard Rock Laboratory: RETENTION IN FRACTURE NETWORKS
journal, February 2004
- Cvetkovic, V.; Painter, S.; Outters, N.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 40, Issue 2
Dispersion and Mixing in Three‐Dimensional Discrete Fracture Networks: Nonlinear Interplay Between Structural and Hydraulic Heterogeneity
journal, May 2018
- Hyman, J. D.; Jiménez‐Martínez, J.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 54, Issue 5
Influence of fracture scale heterogeneity on the flow properties of three-dimensional discrete fracture networks (DFN): 3D FRACTURE NETWORK PERMEABILITY
journal, November 2012
- de Dreuzy, J. -R.; Méheust, Y.; Pichot, G.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 117, Issue B11
Evaluating the effect of internal aperture variability on transport in kilometer scale discrete fracture networks
journal, August 2016
- Makedonska, Nataliia; Hyman, Jeffrey D.; Karra, Satish
- Advances in Water Resources, Vol. 94
Fluid flow and mixing in rough-walled fracture intersections: MIXING IN FRACTURE INTERSECTIONS
journal, December 2006
- Johnson, Joel; Brown, Stephen; Stockman, Harlan
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 111, Issue B12
Anomalous transport on regular fracture networks: Impact of conductivity heterogeneity and mixing at fracture intersections
journal, August 2015
- Kang, Peter K.; Dentz, Marco; Le Borgne, Tanguy
- Physical Review E, Vol. 92, Issue 2
Flow interference effects at fracture intersections
journal, February 1976
- Wilson, Charles R.; Witherspoon, Paul A.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 12, Issue 1
Streamline routing through fracture junctions
journal, November 1986
- Hull, Laurence C.; Koslow, Karen N.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 22, Issue 12
A Laboratory and Numerical Investigation of Solute Transport in Discontinuous Fracture Systems
journal, January 1990
- Robinson, J. W.; Gale, J. E.
- Ground Water, Vol. 28, Issue 1
Mass transfer at fracture intersections: An evaluation of mixing models
journal, June 1994
- Berkowitz, Brian; Naumann, Curt; Smith, Leslie
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 30, Issue 6
A lattice-gas and lattice Boltzmann study of mixing at continuous fracture Junctions: Importance of boundary conditions
journal, June 1997
- Stockman, Harlan W.; Li, Chunhong; Wilson, John L.
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 24, Issue 12
Solute transport at fracture intersections: SOLUTE TRANSPORT AT FRACTURE INTERSECTIONS
journal, January 2002
- Mourzenko, V. V.; Yousefian, F.; Kolbah, B.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 38, Issue 1
Modeling of flow and mixing in 3D rough-walled rock fracture intersections
journal, September 2017
- Zou, Liangchao; Jing, Lanru; Cvetkovic, Vladimir
- Advances in Water Resources, Vol. 107
Transport and intersection mixing in random fracture networks with power law length distributions
journal, October 2001
- Park, Young-Jin; de Dreuzy, Jean-Raynald; Lee, Kang-Kun
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 37, Issue 10
A comparison of fracture mixing models, 2. Analysis of simulation trials
journal, March 1995
- Küpper, J. A.; Schwartz, F. W.; Steffler, P. M.
- Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 18, Issue 1
Effects of junction transfer characteristics on transport in fracture networks
journal, April 2001
- Park, Young-Jin; Lee, Kang-Kun; Berkowitz, Brian
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 37, Issue 4
dfnWorks: A discrete fracture network framework for modeling subsurface flow and transport
journal, November 2015
- Hyman, Jeffrey D.; Karra, Satish; Makedonska, Nataliia
- Computers & Geosciences, Vol. 84
Localized Point Mixing Rate Potential in Heterogeneous Velocity Fields
journal, June 2017
- Aquino, Tomás; Bolster, Diogo
- Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 119, Issue 2
Effects of incomplete mixing on reactive transport in flows through heterogeneous porous media
journal, November 2017
- Wright, Elise E.; Richter, David H.; Bolster, Diogo
- Physical Review Fluids, Vol. 2, Issue 11
Trends, prospects and challenges in quantifying flow and transport through fractured rocks
journal, February 2005
- Neuman, Shlomo P.
- Hydrogeology Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 1
Modeling fracture flow with a stochastic discrete fracture network: calibration and validation: 1. The flow model
journal, March 1990
- Cacas, M. C.; Ledoux, E.; de Marsily, G.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 26, Issue 3
Influence of spatial correlation of fracture centers on the permeability of two-dimensional fracture networks following a power law length distribution: FRACTURE CORRELATION AND PERMEABILITY
journal, January 2004
- de Dreuzy, Jean-Raynald; Darcel, Caroline; Davy, Philippe
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 40, Issue 1
Effective permeability of fractured porous media with power-law distribution of fracture sizes
journal, September 2007
- Bogdanov, I. I.; Mourzenko, V. V.; Thovert, J. -F.
- Physical Review E, Vol. 76, Issue 3
Influence of injection mode on transport properties in kilometer-scale three-dimensional discrete fracture networks: INFLUENCE OF INJECTION MODE IN 3-D DFNs
journal, September 2015
- Hyman, J. D.; Painter, S. L.; Viswanathan, H.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 51, Issue 9
Fracture size and transmissivity correlations: Implications for transport simulations in sparse three-dimensional discrete fracture networks following a truncated power law distribution of fracture size: FRACTURE SIZE AND TRANSMISSIVITY CORRELATIONS
journal, August 2016
- Hyman, J. D.; Aldrich, G.; Viswanathan, H.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 52, Issue 8
Effect of advective flow in fractures and matrix diffusion on natural gas production
journal, October 2015
- Karra, Satish; Makedonska, Nataliia; Viswanathan, Hari S.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 51, Issue 10
Conforming Delaunay Triangulation of Stochastically Generated Three Dimensional Discrete Fracture Networks: A Feature Rejection Algorithm for Meshing Strategy
journal, January 2014
- Hyman, Jeffrey D.; Gable, Carl W.; Painter, Scott L.
- SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, Vol. 36, Issue 4
Particle tracking approach for transport in three-dimensional discrete fracture networks: Particle tracking in 3-D DFNs
journal, September 2015
- Makedonska, Nataliia; Painter, Scott L.; Bui, Quan M.
- Computational Geosciences, Vol. 19, Issue 5
Pathline tracing on fully unstructured control-volume grids
journal, July 2012
- Painter, S. L.; Gable, C. W.; Kelkar, S.
- Computational Geosciences, Vol. 16, Issue 4
On the physical meaning of the dispersion equation and its solutions for different initial and boundary conditions
journal, January 1978
- Kreft, A.; Zuber, A.
- Chemical Engineering Science, Vol. 33, Issue 11
Numerical and analytical modeling of advective travel times in realistic three-dimensional fracture networks: MODELING OF ADVECTIVE TRAVEL TIMES
journal, February 2011
- Frampton, A.; Cvetkovic, V.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 47, Issue 2
The fluid mechanics of fracture and other junctions
journal, February 1988
- Philip, J. R.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 24, Issue 2
Representative hydraulic conductivities in saturated groundwater flow
journal, January 2006
- Sanchez-Vila, Xavier; Guadagnini, Alberto; Carrera, Jesus
- Reviews of Geophysics, Vol. 44, Issue 3
Hydraulic properties of two-dimensional random fracture networks following a power law length distribution: 2. Permeability of networks based on lognormal distribution of apertures
journal, August 2001
- de Dreuzy, Jean-Raynald; Davy, Philippe; Bour, Olivier
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 37, Issue 8
From field data to fracture network modeling: An example incorporating spatial structure
journal, July 1987
- Long, Jane C. S.; Billaux, Daniel M.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 23, Issue 7
Connectivity of random fault networks following a power law fault length distribution
journal, July 1997
- Bour, Olivier; Davy, Philippe
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 33, Issue 7
On the frequency-length distribution of the San Andreas Fault System
journal, July 1993
- Davy, P.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 98, Issue B7
Scaling and connectivity of joint systems in sandstones from western Norway
journal, October 1997
- Odling, Noelle E.
- Journal of Structural Geology, Vol. 19, Issue 10
Hierarchical geometry of faulting
journal, March 1996
- Ouillon, G.; Castaing, C.; Sornette, D.
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 101, Issue B3
Hydraulic properties of two-dimensional random fracture networks following power law distributions of length and aperture: PERMEABILITY OF HETEROGENEOUS FRACTURE NETWORKS
journal, December 2002
- de Dreuzy, J. -R.; Davy, P.; Bour, O.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 38, Issue 12
Inference of field-scale fracture transmissivities in crystalline rock using flow log measurements: TRANSMISSIVITY INFERENCE FROM FLOW LOGS
journal, November 2010
- Frampton, A.; Cvetkovic, V.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 46, Issue 11
Multi-scale groundwater flow modeling during temperate climate conditions for the safety assessment of the proposed high-level nuclear waste repository site at Forsmark, Sweden
journal, July 2014
- Joyce, Steven; Hartley, Lee; Applegate, David
- Hydrogeology Journal, Vol. 22, Issue 6
Effects of simplifying fracture network representation on inert chemical migration in fracture-controlled aquifers: EFFECTS OF FRACTURE NETWORK SIMPLIFICATION
journal, January 2009
- Wellman, Tristan P.; Shapiro, Allen M.; Hill, Mary C.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 45, Issue 1
Percolation parameter and percolation-threshold estimates for three-dimensional random ellipses with widely scattered distributions of eccentricity and size
journal, November 2000
- de Dreuzy, J. -R.; Davy, P.; Bour, O.
- Physical Review E, Vol. 62, Issue 5
Continuous time random walks for the evolution of Lagrangian velocities
journal, November 2016
- Dentz, Marco; Kang, Peter K.; Comolli, Alessandro
- Physical Review Fluids, Vol. 1, Issue 7
Transport behavior in three-dimensional fracture intersections: TRANSPORT IN THREE-DIMENSIONAL FRACTURE INTERSECTIONS
journal, August 2003
- Park, Young-Jin; Lee, Kang-Kun; Kosakowski, Georg
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 39, Issue 8
Structure, flow, and generalized conductivity scaling in fracture networks
journal, September 1998
- Margolin, Gennady; Berkowitz, Brian; Scher, Harvey
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 34, Issue 9
Experimental observation of fluid flow channels in a single fracture
journal, March 1998
- Brown, Stephen; Caprihan, Arvind; Hardy, Robert
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 103, Issue B3
Mixing, spreading and reaction in heterogeneous media: A brief review
journal, March 2011
- Dentz, Marco; Le Borgne, Tanguy; Englert, Andreas
- Journal of Contaminant Hydrology, Vol. 120-121
A procedure for the solution of multicomponent reactive transport problems: MULTICOMPONENT REACTIVE TRANSPORT PROBLEMS
journal, November 2005
- De Simoni, M.; Carrera, J.; Sánchez-Vila, X.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 41, Issue 11
A mixing ratios-based formulation for multicomponent reactive transport: A MIXING RATIO FORMULATION FOR REACTIVE
journal, July 2007
- De Simoni, M.; Sanchez-Vila, X.; Carrera, J.
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 43, Issue 7
Multicomponent reactive transport in multicontinuum media: MULTICOMPONENT REACTIVE TRANSPORT
journal, November 2009
- Donado, Leonardo David; Sanchez-Vila, Xavier; Dentz, Marco
- Water Resources Research, Vol. 45, Issue 11
Rock dissolution patterns and geochemical shutdown of –brine–carbonate reactions during convective mixing in porous media
journal, January 2015
- Fu, X.; Cueto-Felgueroso, L.; Bolster, D.
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 764
Transport of reactive tracers in rock fractures
journal, January 1999
- Cvetkovic, V.; Selroos, J. O.; Cheng, H.
- Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Vol. 378
Works referencing / citing this record:
Particle-Based Workflow for Modeling Uncertainty of Reactive Transport in 3D Discrete Fracture Networks
journal, November 2019
- Vu, Phuong Thanh; Ni, Chuen-Fa; Li, Wei-Ci
- Water, Vol. 11, Issue 12
Stress‐Induced Anomalous Transport in Natural Fracture Networks
text, January 2019
- Kang, Peter K.; Lei, Qinghua; Dentz, Marco
- ETH Zurich