D. Blessent, L.H. Beni, and R. Therrien (Canada)
3D modeling, numerical method, simulations, fractured media
This paper focuses on hydrogeological modeling in fractured geological media. A procedure to combine 3D geological models with a numerical model for fluid flow and solute transport is presented and verified through two applications. The 3D geological model is the representation of a fracture network in the 3D space, while the numerical model solves the partial differential equations governing groundwater flow and mass transport. An unstructured 3D tetrahedral mesh is used to discretize the 3D geological model. The advantage of this procedure is that it allows representing intersecting and non planar fractures, with arbitrary orientation and shape in the 3D space. Furthermore, the mesh can be efficiently refined around fractures, increasing the accuracy of the numerical solution. Finally, a tetrahedral mesh is shown to be appropriate to discretize domains with complex fracture geometries.
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