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Title: A Stochastic Study of Flow Anisotropy and Channelling in Open Rough Fractures

Abstract

The quantification of fluid flow in rough fractures is of high interest for reservoir engineering, especially for deep geothermal applications. Herein, rough self-affine fractures are stochastically generated with incremental shear displacement and geometrically described by two aperture definitions, the vertical aperture avert and the effective aperture aeff. In order to compare their effect on fracture flow, such as anisotropy and channelling, Local Cubic Law (LCL) model-based 2D fluid flow is simulated. The particularity of this approach is the combination of a stochastic generation of self-affine fractures with a statistical analysis (560 individual realizations) of the impact of the LCL’s aperture constraint on fracture flow. The results show that aperture definition affects the quantitative interpretation of flow anisotropy and channeling as well as the aperture distribution of the fractures with shearing. Higher values of mean aperture for a given fracture are found using avert, whereas the aperture standard deviation is larger with aeff. In addition, flow anisotropy is significantly sensitive to aperture definition for small shear displacements and shows a relative higher dispersion with aeff. Thus, LCL prediction models based on avert are expected to lead to higher dispersion of anisotropy results with a higher uncertainty (factor ~ 2). Realizations basedmore » on avert lead to an enhanced clustering of high flow rates for higher shearing displacements. This channeling development results in higher total flow rates for these simulations. Finally, these findings support the direct calibration of pre-existing LCL anisotropy simulations based on avert towards more representative results using aeff.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Karlsruhe Inst. of Technology (Germany)
  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. School of Observatory of Earth Sciences, Strasbourg (France)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1580874
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 53; Journal ID: ISSN 0723-2632
Publisher:
Springer
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
58 GEOSCIENCES; fracture; roughness; aperture; stochastic; anisotropy; channelling

Citation Formats

Marchand, Sophie, Mersch, Olivier, Selzer, Michael, Nitschke, Fabian, Schoenball, Martin, Schmittbuhl, Jean, Nestler, Britta, and Kohl, Thomas. A Stochastic Study of Flow Anisotropy and Channelling in Open Rough Fractures. United States: N. p., 2019. Web. doi:10.1007/s00603-019-01907-4.
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Marchand, Sophie, Mersch, Olivier, Selzer, Michael, Nitschke, Fabian, Schoenball, Martin, Schmittbuhl, Jean, Nestler, Britta, & Kohl, Thomas. A Stochastic Study of Flow Anisotropy and Channelling in Open Rough Fractures. United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-019-01907-4
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Marchand, Sophie, Mersch, Olivier, Selzer, Michael, Nitschke, Fabian, Schoenball, Martin, Schmittbuhl, Jean, Nestler, Britta, and Kohl, Thomas. Tue . "A Stochastic Study of Flow Anisotropy and Channelling in Open Rough Fractures". United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-019-01907-4. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1580874.
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@article{osti_1580874,
title = {A Stochastic Study of Flow Anisotropy and Channelling in Open Rough Fractures},
author = {Marchand, Sophie and Mersch, Olivier and Selzer, Michael and Nitschke, Fabian and Schoenball, Martin and Schmittbuhl, Jean and Nestler, Britta and Kohl, Thomas},
abstractNote = {The quantification of fluid flow in rough fractures is of high interest for reservoir engineering, especially for deep geothermal applications. Herein, rough self-affine fractures are stochastically generated with incremental shear displacement and geometrically described by two aperture definitions, the vertical aperture avert and the effective aperture aeff. In order to compare their effect on fracture flow, such as anisotropy and channelling, Local Cubic Law (LCL) model-based 2D fluid flow is simulated. The particularity of this approach is the combination of a stochastic generation of self-affine fractures with a statistical analysis (560 individual realizations) of the impact of the LCL’s aperture constraint on fracture flow. The results show that aperture definition affects the quantitative interpretation of flow anisotropy and channeling as well as the aperture distribution of the fractures with shearing. Higher values of mean aperture for a given fracture are found using avert, whereas the aperture standard deviation is larger with aeff. In addition, flow anisotropy is significantly sensitive to aperture definition for small shear displacements and shows a relative higher dispersion with aeff. Thus, LCL prediction models based on avert are expected to lead to higher dispersion of anisotropy results with a higher uncertainty (factor ~ 2). Realizations based on avert lead to an enhanced clustering of high flow rates for higher shearing displacements. This channeling development results in higher total flow rates for these simulations. Finally, these findings support the direct calibration of pre-existing LCL anisotropy simulations based on avert towards more representative results using aeff.},
doi = {10.1007/s00603-019-01907-4},
journal = {Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering},
number = ,
volume = 53,
place = {United States},
year = {Tue Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Tue Jul 16 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
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Journal Article:
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Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-019-01907-4
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Figures / Tables:

Fig. 1 Fig. 1: Example of surface generated with a roughness exponent of H = 0.8 after scaling. Note that x, y-axis are in m and z-axis is in mm. The colours refer to the height in the direction of the z-axis.
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    Figures / Tables found in this record:

    Fig. 1 (p. 8)figure
    Fig. 2 (p. 9)figure
    Table 1 (p. 9)table
    Fig. 3 (p. 10)figure
    Fig. 4 (p. 12)figure
    Fig. 5 (p. 13)figure
    Fig. 6 (p. 13)figure
    Fig. 7 (p. 16)figure
    Fig. 8 (p. 17)figure
    Fig. 9 (p. 17)figure
    Fig. 10 (p. 18)figure
    Fig. 11 (p. 19)figure
    Fig. 12 (p. 20)figure
    Fig. 13 (p. 20)figure
    Fig. 14 (p. 22)figure
    Fig. 15 (p. 23)figure
    Table 2 (p. 23)table
    Fig. 16 (p. 24)figure
    Fig. 17 (p. 25)figure
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