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The Characteristics and Estimation of Flow Through a Single Rough-Walled Fracture

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Abstract

The flow through a single fracture is numerically studied by means of the Fluent Software. The results show that the roughness of the fracture significantly affects the hydraulic conductivity in the fracture as compared with the cubic law model widely used to describe the flow between two smooth parallel plates. A new model is proposed in this paper, the non-symmetric sinusoidal fracture model, to simulate the flow in a real fracture. This model involves two sinusoidal-varying walls with different phases to replace the flat planes in the cubic law model. The relationships between the effective hydraulic apertures and the phase retardation for different relative amplitudes and wavelengths are numerically investigated. A simple expression of the effective hydraulic aperture of the fracture is obtained, together with the law of the effective hydraulic aperture against the amplitude, the phase retardation and the wavelength of two sinusoidal-varying walls.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Environmental Mechanics, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Qing-quan Liu & Hong-guang Fan

Authors
  1. Qing-quan Liu
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  2. Hong-guang Fan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qing-quan Liu.

Additional information

Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10932012), the National Natural Science Funds of China for Distinguished Young Scholar (Grant No. 10825211) and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (973 Program, Grant No. 2010CB731506).

Biography: LIU Qing-quan (1965-), Male, Ph. D., Professor

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Liu, Qq., Fan, Hg. The Characteristics and Estimation of Flow Through a Single Rough-Walled Fracture. J Hydrodyn 24, 315–322 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1016/S1001-6058(11)60250-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1001-6058(11)60250-3

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