TY - JOUR

T1 - Experimental and theoretical investigations of drainage in horizontal rough-walled fractures with different correlation structures

AU - Neuweiler, Insa

AU - Sorensen, Ivan

AU - Kinzelbach, Wolfgang

N1 - Funding information: We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Swiss National Science Foundation under project no 21-52224.97 and of the European Community programme Improving Human Research Potential and the Socio-economic Knowledge Base under contract number HPMF-CT-2000-00948. We thank Hui Chen Su for the design of the fracture models and Toni Blunschi for their realization. Also, we thank Olaf Cirpka for the discussion of the manuscript.

PY - 2004/11/17

Y1 - 2004/11/17

N2 - Experiments on the immiscible displacement of water by air were performed in two horizontal artificial open rough-walled fractures with different correlation structures. The aperture field of the first fracture has a Gaussian variogram with a finite correlation length, while that of the second one has a power-law variogram, for which no finite correlation length can be assigned. We simulated the displacement process using an invasion percolation model, which takes the in-plane curvature of the interface between water and air into account. The correlation structure of the aperture field has no effect on the irregularity of the shape of the air clusters. However, the correlation structure in combination with the in-plane curvature influences the density of the air clusters and thus has an impact on characteristic properties of the flow. We analyze the model parameters and properties with respect to the fracture properties. The stochastic average of the air clusters for models with different curvature numbers and fields with different correlation lengths is then calculated in order to analyze their influence on continuum approach models.

AB - Experiments on the immiscible displacement of water by air were performed in two horizontal artificial open rough-walled fractures with different correlation structures. The aperture field of the first fracture has a Gaussian variogram with a finite correlation length, while that of the second one has a power-law variogram, for which no finite correlation length can be assigned. We simulated the displacement process using an invasion percolation model, which takes the in-plane curvature of the interface between water and air into account. The correlation structure of the aperture field has no effect on the irregularity of the shape of the air clusters. However, the correlation structure in combination with the in-plane curvature influences the density of the air clusters and thus has an impact on characteristic properties of the flow. We analyze the model parameters and properties with respect to the fracture properties. The stochastic average of the air clusters for models with different curvature numbers and fields with different correlation lengths is then calculated in order to analyze their influence on continuum approach models.

KW - Artificial fractures

KW - Correlation

KW - Drainage

KW - Invasion percolation

KW - Open fracture flow

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=10644225337&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2004.07.005

DO - 10.1016/j.advwatres.2004.07.005

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:10644225337

VL - 27

SP - 1217

EP - 1231

JO - Advances in water resources

JF - Advances in water resources

SN - 0309-1708

IS - 12

ER -