Abstract
Faults and fractures play an important, if not dominant, role in the transport of fluids through rocks. Under a wide range of circumstances the fluid flow process is concentrated onto a network of interconnected fractures. However, the flow of fluids through highly permeable rocks may be seriously impeded if fractures have become filled by impermeable materials resulting from a combination of mechanical phenomena and chemical processes, generally involving the flow of water carrying dissolved or colloidal minerals, into, along and out of the fracture. In either case the geometry of individual fractures, the transport within or across individual fractures, their interactions with the surrounding rocks, and the manner in which they are connected, is essential to a good overall understanding of fluid transport phenomena.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Batchelor, G. K. (1967) An Introduction to Fluid Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 216–28.
Boger, F. (1993) Rough surfaces, synthesis, analysis, visualization and applications. PhD thesis, Department of Physics, University of Oslo.
Brown, S. R. and Scholz, C. H. (1985) Broad bandwidth study of the topography of natural rock surfaces. Journal of Geophysical Research, 90, 12575–82.
Centrella, J. and Wilson, J. R. (1984) Planar Numerical Cosmology II: The difference equations and numerical tests. Astrophysics Journal (Suppl.), 54, 229–49.
Døvie, M. (1993) Dispersion in 2-d homogeneous and inhomogeneous porous media. Master thesis. Department of Physics, University of Oslo.
Engøy, T., Måløy, K. J., Hansen, A. and Roux, S. (1994) Roughness of two-dimensional cracks in wood. Physical Review Letters, 73, 834–7.
Feder, J. (1988) Fractals, Plenum Press, New York.
Hawley, J. F., Smarr, L. and Wilson, J. R. (1984) A numerical study of nonspherical black hole accretion. II. Finite differencing and code calibration. Astrophysics Journal (Suppl.), 55, 211–46.
Hele-Shaw, H. S. (1898) Investigation of the nature of surface resistance of water and of stream-line motion under certain experimental conditions. Transactions of the Institution of Naval Architects, 40, 21–46.
Isichenko, M. B. (1992) Percolation, statistical topography, and transport in random media. Reviews of Modern Physics, 64, 961–1043.
Landau, L. D. and Lifshitz, E. M. (1987) Fluid Mechanics (2nd edn), Pergamon Press, Oxford, pp. 58–68.
Lenormand, R. and Bories, S. (1980) Description d’un mécanisme de connexion de liason destiné a l’etude du drainage avec piégeage en milieu poreux. Comptes Rendus de l’Academie des Science de Paris, 291, 279–83.
Mandelbrot B. B. (1982) The fractal geometry of Nature, Freeman, New York.
Mandelbrot, B. B., Passoja, D. E. and Paullay, A. J. (1984) Fractal character of fracture surfaces on metals. Nature, 308, 721–2.
Manning, C. (1994) Fractal clustering in metamorphic veins. Geology, 22, 335–8.
Martys, N. S. (1994) Fractal growth in hydrodynamic dispersion through random porous media. Physics Review, E50, 335–42.
Meakin, P. (1993) The growth of rough surfaces and interfaces. Physics Reports, 235, 189–289.
Meakin, P., Wagner, G., Feder, J. and Jøssang, T. (1993) Simulations of migration, fragmentation and coalescence of non-wetting fluids in porous media. Physica A, 200, 241–9.
Oxaal, U., Flekkøy, E. G. and Feder, J. (1994) Irreversible dispersion at a stagnation point: Experiments and Lattice Boltzmann Simulations. Physics Review Letters, 72, 3514–17.
Peyret, R. and Taylor, T. D. (1983) Computational Methods for Fluid Flow, Springer-Verlag, New York.
Saupe, D. (1988) Random fractal algorithms, in The Science of Fractal Images (eds H.-O. Peitgen and D. Saupe) Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 71–136.
Scheidegger, A. E. (1974) The Physics of Flow Through Porous Media (3rd edn), University of Toronto Press, Toronto.
Schmittbuehl, J., Schmitt, F. and Scholz, C. (1995) Scaling invariance of crack surfaces. Journal of Geophysical Research, 100, 5953–73.
Scott, P. A., Engelder, T. and Mecholsky Jr., J. J. (1992) The correlation between fracture-toughness anisotropy and crack surface morphology of siltstones in the Ithaca formation, Appalachian basin, in Fault Mechanics and Transport Properties of Rocks (eds B. Evans and T.-F. Wong), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 341–70.
Voss, R. F. (1985) Random fractal forgeries, in Fundamental Algorithms for Computer Graphics (ed. R. A. Earnshaw), Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 805–35.
Wilkinson, D. and Willemsen, J. F. (1983) Invasion percolation: A new form of percolation theory. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General Physics, 16, 3365–76.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1997 Chapman & Hall
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Meakin, P., Rage, T., Wagner, G., Feder, J., Jøssang, T. (1997). Simulations of One- and Two-Phase Flow in Fractures. 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_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1533-6_15
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7184-0
Online ISBN: 978-94-009-1533-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive