A field tracer experiment was conducted in a lateral flow field in the weathered and highly fractured upper 6 m of a 40-m-thick clay-rich till plain in southwestern Ontario. In the upper 3 m where fractures are closely spaced (<0.13 m) the advancing front (C/Co = 0.01) of the nonreactive solute tracers, bromide and O, migrated at rates of 0.01 to 0.07 m/d, over distances of 4 and 6 m and under ...

Highlights • A novel numerical approach has been proposed to retrieve the hydraulic transmissivity of elliptical rock fractures in triaxial shear-flow experiments. The accuracy different methods for estimation evaluated and discussed. electrical analogy are recommended accurate evaluation fractures.

This paper presents an innovative method to simulate fluid flow in fractured geothermal reservoirs. The geothermal reservoirs are considered at their full complexity, with variably oriented and intersected fractures with different sizes and irregular patterns. Fluid flows inside the matrix, fractures and fluid interactions between matrix and fractures are also taken into account. A boundary ele...

Fractures have crucial impact on flow in reservoirs. In naturally fractured reservoirs (NFR) the fracture network alone can be the dominant factor in fluid transport. Fractures as geological discontinuities introduce a high level of complexity into the entire reservoir modeling workflow. In current practice, the geological modeling of fractures and flow simulation are considerably disconnected,...

Various analytical, semi-analytical, and empirical models have been proposed to characterize rate and pressure behavior as a function of time in tight gas and shale gas systems featuring horizontal wells with multiple hydraulic fractures. Despite a few analytical models, as well as a small number of published numerical studies, there is currently little consensus regarding the large-scale flow ...

The coupled fluid-flow and stress model with time-dependent effect is developed. In this model, rock mass is simulated as a homogeneous and isotropic dual-porosity, dual-permeability continuum. Darcy’s law is used to describe the fluid flow in a porous medium, and cubic law is used to describe the flow in fractures. The finite element method is introduced to solve the system, and the effects of...

This paper presents a triple-continuum conceptual model for simulating flow and transport processes in fractured rock. Field data collected from the unsaturated zone of Yucca Mountain, a repository site of high-level nuclear waste, show a large number of small-scale fractures. The effect of these small fractures has not been considered in previous modeling investigations within the context of a...