A Fractal Model for Predicting the Relative Permeability of Rough-Walled Fractures

Abstract

The relative permeability and saturation relationships through fractures are fundamental for modeling multiphase flow in underground geological fractured formations. In contrast to the traditional straight capillary model from porous media, the realistic flow paths in rough-walled fractures are tortuous. In this study, a fractal relationship between relative permeability and saturation of rough-walled fractures is proposed associated with the fractal characteristics of tortuous parallel capillary plates, which can be generalized to several existing models. Based on the consideration that the aperture distribution of rough-walled fracture can be represented by Gaussian and lognormal distributions, aperture-based expressions between relative permeability and saturation are explicitly derived. The developed relationships are validated by the experimental observations on Gaussian distributed fractures and numerical results on lognormal distributed fractures, respectively.