FRACTAL MONTE CARLO SIMULATIONS OF THE EFFECTIVE PERMEABILITY FOR A FRACTURE NETWORK

Abstract

Modeling fluid flow and transport in fracture network is of considerable importance in a wide range of science and engineering. In this work, a probability model of the effective permeability for fracture network is developed based on fractal theory and Monte Carlo method. The proposed numerical model is expressed as a function of the fractal dimension, the minimum/maximum trace length, fracture orientation as well as random number, and the validity is validated by comparison with the analytical fractal model. It is found that the effective permeability increases with the increase of the fractal dimension and fracture density of fracture network, as well as decreases with increase of the dip angle of fractures. The proposed Fractal Monte Carlo method can significantly reduce the computational load compared with conventional numerical techniques and also permits to relate the other flow and transport properties in fracture networks.