Simulation of Steady-State Flow in Three-Dimensional Fracture Networks Using the Boundary Element Method

Abstract

The modelling of transport phenomena in fractured rock has been a topic of increasing interest over the past several years. In studies which have been undertaken to date, the means by which transport phenomena are mathematically conceptualized have taken two distinct routes. The necessity for alternative idealizations of fractured rock has arisen from the fact that the length scale of a given problem in relation to the density of fracturing is not consistent from one rock formation to another. This has led to conceptualizations of fractured rock as either a system of individual and possibly interconnected fractures in a permeable or impermeable host rock, or as one or more overlapping continua, in a similar manner to the mathematical treatment of granular porous media.