The structure of fractures in nature rock appears irregular and induces complicated seepage flow behavior.The mechanism and quantitative description of fluid flow through rock fractures is a difficult subject that has been greatly concerned in the fields of geotechnical,mining,geological,and petroleum engineering.In order to probe the mechanism of fluid flow and the effects of rough structures,we conducted a few laboratory tests of fluid flow through single rough fractures,in which the Weierstrass-Mandelbrot fractal function and PMMA material were employed to produce the fracture models with various fractal roughnesses.A high-speed video camera was employed to record the fluid flow through the entire single rough fracture with a constant hydraulic pressure.The properties of fluid flow varying with the fracture roughness and the influences of the rough structure were analyzed.The components of flow resistance of a single rough fracture were discussed.A fractal model was proposed to relate the fluid resistance to the fracture roughness.A fractal equivalent permeability coefficient of a single rough fracture was formulated.This study aims to provide an experimental basis and reference for better understanding and quantitatively relating the fluid flow properties to the structures of rock fractures.
JU YangZHANG QinGangYANG YongMingXIE HePingGAO FengWANG HuiJie
Accurate knowledge of the influence of rock deformation on the permeability of fluid flow is of great significance to a variety of engineering applications, such as simultaneous extraction of coal and gas, oil/gas exploitation, CO2 geological sequestration, and underground water conservation. Based on the CT representation of pore structures of sandstones, a LBM(Lattice Boltzmann Method) for simulating CH4 flow in pore spaces at microscale levels and a parallel LBM algorithm for largesize porous models are developed in this paper. The properties of CH4 flow in porous sandstones and the effects of pore structure are investigated using LBM. The simulation is validated by comparing the results with the measured data. In addition, we incorporate LBM and FEM to probe the deformation of microstructures due to applied triaxial forces and its influence on the properties of CH4 flow. It is shown that the proposed method is capable of visually and quantitatively describing the characteristics of microstructure, spatial distribution of flow velocity of CH4,permeability, and the influences of deformation of pore spaces on these quantities as well. It is shown that there is a good consistency between LBM simulation and experimental measurement in terms of the permeability of sandstone with various porosities.
