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An Approach for Modeling Rock Discontinuous Mechanical Behavior Under Multiphase Fluid Flow Conditions

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Abstract

In this paper, the two computer codes TOUGH2 and RDCA (for “rock discontinuous cellular automaton”) are integrated for coupled hydromechanical analysis of multiphase fluid flow and discontinuous mechanical behavior in heterogeneous rock. TOUGH2 is a well-established code for geohydrological analysis involving multiphase, multicomponent fluid flow and heat transport; RDCA is a numerical model developed for simulating the nonlinear and discontinuous geomechanical behavior of rock. The RDCA incorporates the discontinuity of a fracture independently of the mesh, such that the fracture can be arbitrarily located within an element, while the fluid pressure calculated by TOUGH2 can be conveniently applied to fracture surfaces. We verify and demonstrate the coupled TOUGH–RDCA simulator by modeling a number of simulation examples related to coupled multiphase flow and geomechanical processes associated with the deep geological storage of carbon dioxide—including modeling of ground surface uplift, stress-dependent permeability, and the coupled multiphase flow and geomechanical behavior of fractures intersecting the caprock.

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Acknowledgments

This work was finically supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 10972231, 41272349, 11002154) and the National Basic Research Program of China under Grant No. 2010CB732006, and in part, supported by the US Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. We thank Daniel Hawkes at LBNL for reviewing the initial version of the paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Peng-Zhi Pan, Xia-Ting Feng & Fei Yan

  2. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, MS 90-1116, Berkeley, CA, 94720, USA

    Peng-Zhi Pan & Jonny Rutqvist

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  1. Peng-Zhi Pan
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  2. Jonny Rutqvist
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  3. Xia-Ting Feng
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  4. Fei Yan
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Correspondence to Peng-Zhi Pan.

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Pan, PZ., Rutqvist, J., Feng, XT. et al. An Approach for Modeling Rock Discontinuous Mechanical Behavior Under Multiphase Fluid Flow Conditions. Rock Mech Rock Eng 47, 589–603 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-013-0428-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-013-0428-1

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