A great deal of effort has been made to characterize the nature of the discontinuities of the Yucca Mountain proposed nuclear waste repository. Discontinuity sets were identified, using orientation only as the basis of cluster analysis. Other discontinuity characteristics such as lithology fracture frequency, continuity, roughness, aperture, and infilling have been analyzed, but separate and di...

A physically based fault conceptual model is presented for modeling multiphase flow and transport processes in fractured rock of fault zones. In particular, we discuss a general mathematical framework model for dealing with fracture-matrix interactions, which is applicable to both continuum and discrete fracture conceptualization in fault zones. In this conceptual model, faults or fault zones o...

An enhanced geothermal system (EGS) proposed on the basis of hot dry rock mining technology has become a focus research. A novel procedure for coupled simulation thermal and fluid flow models (NPCTF) is derived to model heat energy absorption characteristics in rough-walled fractures. The perturbation method used calculate pressure rate connected wedge-shaped cells at pore-scale, an approximate...

Phase-field modeling—a continuous approach to discontinuities—is gaining popularity for simulating rock fractures due its ability handle complex, discontinuous geometry without an explicit surface tracking algorithm. None of the existing phase-field models, however, incorporates impact roughness on mechanical response fractures—such as elastic deformability and shear-induced dilation—despite im...

The subject of this thesis forms part of a research program dealing with fractured rock masses being undertaken by the "Centre de Géologie de l'Ingénieur (CGI)" from the "Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris (ENSMP)" and the "Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (ENPC)". In fractured rock masses, it is very difficult to undertake engineering works without analysing, beforehand, the f...

[1] In order to improve discrete fracture network (DFN) models, which are increasingly required into groundwater and rock mechanics applications, we propose a new DFN modeling based on the evolution of fracture network formation—nucleation, growth, and arrest—with simplified mechanical rules. The central idea of the model relies on the mechanical role played by large fractures in stopping the g...