Develops a hydromechanical model to improve fluid flow predictions in sheared fractures, indicating enhanced fracture permeability.
Key Points
The research aims to develop a Forchheimer model that accurately captures fluid flow through complex rock fractures by considering void-space connectivity.
Developed a Forchheimer-based hydromechanical model for nonlinear flow in fractures.
Integrated 8 conceptual hydraulic aperture models into the framework.
Used a novel path searching algorithm to identify preferential flow pathways.
Conducted a systematic analysis of fracture permeability with a dataset from 384 shear-flow tests.
Achieved a mean absolute percentage error of 16.7% in predictions.
Demonstrated a regression slope of 0.93 between measured and simulated results.
Showed strong agreement with experimental data, enhancing fracture permeability predictions.