The Active Fracture Model and Fractal Flow Behavior
H.H. Liu, G. Zhang, and G.S. Bodvarsson
Contact: H.H. Liu, 510/486-6452, hhliu@lbl.gov
Research Objectives
Continuum approaches are commonly used for modeling flow and transport in unsaturated fractured rocks. A traditional continuum approach assumes uniformly distributed flow patterns at a subgrid scale and therefore cannot be used for representing gravity-driven fingering flow and transport in fracture networks. In an effort to incorporate this figuring flow behavior into the continuum approach, Liu et al. (1998) developed the active fracture model (AFM), which assumes that only a portion of fractures in a connected unsaturated fracture network contributes to liquid water flow. The major objective of this work is to provide a further evaluation of the AFM, based on both theoretical arguments and field observations (Liu et al., 2003).
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 Relation between the number of boxes (N) covering at least one coated fracture, and box size 1. The fitting of the solid line (corresponding to a power function) with the data points indicates a fractal pattern.
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