Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane

The rock mass, by nature, includes fractures at different scales, which influence the hydro-mechanical behavior of formation. In many engineering applications the formation is porous, for example, tunneling in sandstone layers or production from a sandstone reservoir. The fluid flow in a fractured p...

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Main Authors: Rasouli, A., Rasouli, Vamegh
Other Authors: ISRM
Format: Conference Paper
Published: ISRM 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/34047
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author Rasouli, A.
Rasouli, Vamegh
author2 ISRM
author_facet ISRM
Rasouli, A.
Rasouli, Vamegh
author_sort Rasouli, A.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description The rock mass, by nature, includes fractures at different scales, which influence the hydro-mechanical behavior of formation. In many engineering applications the formation is porous, for example, tunneling in sandstone layers or production from a sandstone reservoir. The fluid flow in a fractured porous formation would be partly through the formation but the major flow path is the fracture. This, however, depends on different parameters including the formation permeability and more importantly the applied stresses. In this paper, 2D fluid flow simulations are performed using FLUENT on a simple lab scale porous formation which includes one fracture plane. One phase flow with water in a laminar regime was assumed for the analysis. The simulations were conducted for fractures with different surface roughness and also formations with different permeabilities. Also, the fracture aperture was changed to investigate the corresponding effect of applied normal stresses to the fracture plane on permeability. The results indicate how the contribution of fracture in fluid flow reduces at smaller apertures and also larger fracture surface roughness. In general, similar results were observed for larger formation permeabilities.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2012
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-340472017-01-30T13:40:59Z Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane Rasouli, A. Rasouli, Vamegh ISRM FLUENT roughness fluid flow fracture porosity The rock mass, by nature, includes fractures at different scales, which influence the hydro-mechanical behavior of formation. In many engineering applications the formation is porous, for example, tunneling in sandstone layers or production from a sandstone reservoir. The fluid flow in a fractured porous formation would be partly through the formation but the major flow path is the fracture. This, however, depends on different parameters including the formation permeability and more importantly the applied stresses. In this paper, 2D fluid flow simulations are performed using FLUENT on a simple lab scale porous formation which includes one fracture plane. One phase flow with water in a laminar regime was assumed for the analysis. The simulations were conducted for fractures with different surface roughness and also formations with different permeabilities. Also, the fracture aperture was changed to investigate the corresponding effect of applied normal stresses to the fracture plane on permeability. The results indicate how the contribution of fracture in fluid flow reduces at smaller apertures and also larger fracture surface roughness. In general, similar results were observed for larger formation permeabilities. 2012 Conference Paper http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/34047 ISRM restricted
spellingShingle FLUENT
roughness
fluid flow
fracture
porosity
Rasouli, A.
Rasouli, Vamegh
Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane
title Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane
title_full Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane
title_fullStr Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane
title_full_unstemmed Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane
title_short Simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane
title_sort simulations of fluid flow through a porous formation with a single rough fracture plane
topic FLUENT
roughness
fluid flow
fracture
porosity
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/34047