Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mesoscopic Evaluation of Non-Linear Fluid Flow Through Rough-Walled Fractures Using 'T Model'
Mesoscopic Evaluation of Non-Linear Fluid Flow Through Rough-Walled Fractures Using 'T Model'
Sharifzadeh, M.
Department of Mining & Metallurgical Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, 15875-4413 Tehran, Iran
Copyright 2013 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association
th
This paper was prepared for presentation at the 47 US Rock Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in San Francisco, CA, USA, 23-26
June 2013.
This paper was selected for presentation at the symposium by an ARMA Technical Program Committee based on a technical and critical review of
the paper by a minimum of two technical reviewers. The material, as presented, does not necessarily reflect any position of ARMA, its officers, or
members. Electronic reproduction, distribution, or storage of any part of this paper for commercial purposes without the written consent of ARMA
is prohibited. Permission to reproduce in print is restricted to an abstract of not more than 200 words; illustrations may not be copied. The
abstract must contain conspicuous acknowledgement of where and by whom the paper was presented.
ABSTRACT: The main subject of this paper is to examine the mesoscopic non-linear fluid flow through three-dimensional roughwalled fractures. Computational domain of an artificial three-dimensional fracture was generated and both laminar and turbulent
flow through the void specimen were simulated using finite volume method for a wide range of flow rates. Geometrical domain of
the fracture was discretized to 125 sub-fractures and calculated average pressure drop of sub-fractures from each flow rate of
turbulent flow simulation were compared with those predicted by T model. The results show that: 1) by increasing Reynolds
number, the difference between laminar and turbulent flow simulations increases as the relative error increases from 3.2% to
17.3% for Reynolds number of 4.5 to 89.5, respectively, 2) the effect of non-linear flow increases with Reynolds number and the
Forchheimer law was fitted very well to both laminar and turbulent flow simulations, and T model predictions, 2) there is an
appropriate correspondence between predicted sub-fractures pressure drops obtained by T model and turbulent flow simulation.
1. INTRODUCTION
Fluid flow and solute transport in fractured rock masses
are of keys interest for many practical applications. In
many geological structures, the matrix permeability is
negligible compared to permeability of fractures and
rock mass hydraulic behavior is controlled by fractures.
In such situations, the development of realistic and
robust predictive models of flow and transport requires a
thorough understanding of the physical processes that
govern flow in individual fractures.
Traditionally, single fracture has been idealized as a set
of parallel plates in order to obtain a tractable
mathematical description of fluid flow, namely, the
cubic law [1]. However, it is well understood that single
fractures are rough-walled conduits with variable
aperture and the classical view of a rock fracture as a
pair of smooth, and parallel plates is not adequate for the
description of flow. In order to deal with the variations
of the aperture, the Reynolds lubrication equation [2]
was introduced as an alternative approximation to the
considerably more computationally intensive solution of
the Navier-Stokes (NS) equations. This approximation is
just valid for laminar flow through fractures and needs
some especial geometrical and kinematical conditions of
fracture and fluid flow, respectively [3,4] that are rarely
occurred for natural rough-walled fractures. Therefore,
2. GOVERNING EQUATIONS
The general description of fluid flow in a single fracture
is given by the NS equations, which express momentum
and mass conservation at the microscopic level at points
within the fluid continuum over the fracture void space.
Considering the steady laminar flow of a Newtonian
fluid with constant density and viscosity through a
fracture with impermeable walls, the NS equations can
be written in vector form as [7],
(u. )u = 2 u p
where PMstatic
is the static pressure drop of main
.F
fracture, Q is the volumetric flow rate, and is the
tortuosity factor.
(1)
.u = 0
12
Q
y
z
i
=
1
ij
PMstatic
m
.F =
2
x
j =1
z ij
i =1
(3)
2
2
2 n 1 m
3
2
Q
z ij z ij
z i , j +1
+
m
2
m
m 3
2(x ) j =1 i =1
3
3
z
z
ij ij z i , j +1
i =1
i =1 i=1
(2)
3. NUMERICAL SIMULATION
Finite volume method has been employed to solve the
NS equations and continuity equation for a threedimensional problem. Direct numerical simulation
(DNS) and Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS)
equations were used for laminar and turbulent flow
simulation, respectively. The numerical solution of the
NS equations for turbulent flow is extremely difficult,
and due to the significantly different mixing-length
scales that are involved in turbulent flow, the stable
solution of this requires such a fine mesh resolution that
the computation time becomes significantly long.
Attempts to solve turbulent flow using a laminar solver
typically result in a time-unsteady solution, which fails
to converge appropriately. To encounter this, a timeaveraged equation, RANS, supplemented with k
turbulence model was used in practical computational
fluid dynamics applications when modeling turbulent
flow. In this study, the FLUENTTM code was used for
both laminar and turbulent flow simulation.
A three-dimensional geometrical domain of an arbitrary
fracture with 3 mm in width and 12.5 mm in length, in xand y-directions respectively, was used for fluid flow
p = AQ + BQ 2
(4)
Re =
Q
w
(4)
Fig. 4. Comparison between predicted SPj with T model and Turbulent flow simulation for inlet velocities of: (a) 0.01 m/s (b)
0.05 m/s (c) 0.1 m/s and (d) 0.2 m/s.
sub-fractures for: (a) j =25 (b) j =65 (c) j =80 and (d) j =110.
sub-fractures for: (a) j =27 (b) j =67 (c) j =82 and (d) j =112.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.