Tangential Fluid flow within 3D narrow fissures: Conservative velocity fields on associated triangulations and transport processes

TL;DR

This paper develops a conservative tangential flow model within 3D narrow fissures, enabling analysis of fluid transport, energy dissipation, and contaminant movement in uncertain fractured media.

Contribution

It introduces a novel flow field construction that accounts for fracture geometry uncertainty and facilitates detailed transport process analysis.

Findings

Allows computation of preferential flow directions

Enables estimation of energy dissipation rates

Models fluid transport and contaminant advection efficiently

Abstract

For a fissured medium with uncertainty in the knowledge of fractures' geometry, a conservative tangential flow field is constructed, which is consistent with the physics of stationary fluid flow in porous media and an interpolated geometry of the cracks. The flow field permits computing preferential fluid flow directions of the medium, rates of mechanical energy dissipations and a stochastic matrix modeling stream lines and fluid mass transportation, for the analysis of solute/contaminant mass advection-diffusion as well as drainage times.