Numerical Modeling of the Fluid Flow through Deformable Fractured Porous Media

The interactions between fluids and deformation in the fractured porous media (e.g. rocks and soils) are critical in geological engineering fields, such as the reservoir engineering, geothermal engineering, the geological disposal of nuclear waste engineering and hydraulic engineering. A new finite element based numerical modeling of the deformation and fluid flow through fractured porous media is presented here with the special attention to the FEM mesh generation of the fractured media. Based on the available rock image data, the rock structure information can be extracted through the converted image data and the interface boundaries between different material/structures can be defined. All the above related information will be described via the specified data during the meshing process and output for the further finite element analysis. Optimized mesh size control is applied to ensure that the fine meshes generated around fractured/boundary zone, while coarse meshes generated in the rock matrixes if nothing special required. In addition, a new pressure-permeability formula is proposed to reflect the relationship between stress and the permeability of deformable fractured porous media. Finally, numerical tests have been performed to investigate the interactions between fluid flow and deformation in fractured porous media and demonstrate the efficiency and usefulness of the proposed algorithm