Abstract
The geometry of fracture systems affects the hydro-mechanical properties of fractured rocks to a great extent. There are two categories of geometrical properties of a fracture system. One category is the metric properties such as orientation, spacing, aperture and size. These properties can be measured with certain unit dimensions (degrees, metres, or square metres, for example) and they may vary under certain conditions (e.g. during a deformation process). The other category is the topological properties, typically the fracture connectivity, which cannot be measured by using any unit dimensions and does not change during continuous deformation processes. For example, two connected fractures will remain connected unless the blocks containing these two fractures are completely detached from each other, which is, however, a discontinuous deformation process.
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© 1997 Chapman & Hall
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Jing, L., Stephansson, O. (1997). Network Topology and Homogenization of Fractured Rocks. In: Jamtveit, B., Yardley, B.W.D. (eds) Fluid Flow and Transport in Rocks. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1533-6_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1533-6_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7184-0
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