Numerical Study of Natural Convection and Diffusion in Fractured Porous Media

Abstract

Summary Compositional variation in a rectangular two-dimensional (x,z) fractured porous medium containing a two-component singlephase fluid in the presence of a prescribed linear temperature field is considered. The work examines the effect of the fracture parameters: fracture aperture (or fracture permeability), fracture intensity, and fracture connectivity on the fluid compositional variation. Numerical results reveal that, for a high fracture aperture, a pronounced convective motion within the fractures takes place, whereas the composition is only affected beyond a certain fracture aperture. The effect of connected and discrete fractures on compositional variation is also studied; connected fractures influence the compositional variation much more than discrete fractures, as expected. The convection cells are mainly loops which develop within the connected fractures.