Evaluating the effect of internal aperture variability on transport in kilometer scale discrete fracture networks

Makedonska, Nataliia; Hyman, Jeffrey D.; Karra, Satish; Painter, Scott L.; Gable, Carl W.; Viswanathan, Hari S.

doi:10.1016/j.advwatres.2016.06.010

Title: Evaluating the effect of internal aperture variability on transport in kilometer scale discrete fracture networks

Journal Article · Mon Aug 01 00:00:00 EDT 2016 · Advances in Water Resources

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.advwatres.2016.06.010· OSTI ID:1260532

Makedonska, Nataliia ^[1]; Hyman, Jeffrey D. ^[1]; Karra, Satish ^[1]; Painter, Scott L. ^[2]; Gable, Carl W. ^[1]; Viswanathan, Hari S. ^[1]

Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The apertures of natural fractures in fractured rock are highly heterogeneous. However, in-fracture aperture variability is often neglected in flow and transport modeling and individual fractures are assumed to have uniform aperture distribution. The relative importance of in-fracture variability in flow and transport modeling within kilometer-scale fracture networks has been under debate for a long time, since the flow in each single fracture is controlled not only by in-fracture variability but also by boundary conditions. Computational limitations have previously prohibited researchers from investigating the relative importance of in-fracture variability in flow and transport modeling within large-scale fracture networks. We address this question by incorporating internal heterogeneity of individual fractures into flow simulations within kilometer scale three-dimensional fracture networks, where fracture intensity, P₃₂ (ratio between total fracture area and domain volume) is between 0.027 and 0.031 [1/m]. The recently developed discrete fracture network (DFN) simulation capability, dfnWorks, is used to generate kilometer scale DFNs that include in-fracture aperture variability represented by a stationary log-normal stochastic field with various correlation lengths and variances. The Lagrangian transport parameters, non-reacting travel time, , and cumulative retention, , are calculated along particles streamlines. As a result, it is observed that due to local flow channeling early particle travel times are more sensitive to in-fracture aperture variability than the tails of travel time distributions, where no significant effect of the in-fracture aperture variations and spatial correlation length is observed.

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Research Organization:: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE), Oil & Natural Gas

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-06NA25396; AC05-00OR22725

OSTI ID:: 1260532

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1261554; OSTI ID: 1325331

Report Number(s):: LA-UR-15-29340

Journal Information:: Advances in Water Resources, Vol. 94; ISSN 0309-1708

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Cited by: 69 works

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Statistical Formulation of Generalized Tracer Retention in Fractured Rock: TRACER RETENTION IN FRACTURED ROCK Cvetkovic, Vladimir Water Resources Research, Vol. 53, Issue 11 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017wr021187	journal	November 2017
Characterizing the Impact of Fractured Caprock Heterogeneity on Supercritical CO$$_2$$ Injection Hyman, Jeffrey D.; Jiménez-Martínez, Joaquin; Gable, Carl W. Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 131, Issue 3 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-019-01372-1	journal	November 2019
Advective Transport in Discrete Fracture Networks With Connected and Disconnected Textures Representing Internal Aperture Variability Frampton, A.; Hyman, J. D.; Zou, L. Water Resources Research, Vol. 55, Issue 7 https://doi.org/10.1029/2018wr024322	journal	July 2019
Quantifying Topological Uncertainty in Fractured Systems using Graph Theory and Machine Learning Srinivasan, Gowri; Hyman, Jeffrey D.; Osthus, David A. Scientific Reports, Vol. 8, Issue 1 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-30117-1	journal	August 2018
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Title: Evaluating the effect of internal aperture variability on transport in kilometer scale discrete fracture networks

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