Abstract
The fluid flow and tracer transport in a single rock fracture during shear processes is investigated in this paper using Finite Element Method (FEM) and streamline particle tracking method, considering evolutions of aperture and transmissivity with shear displacement histories under different normal stresses, based on laboratory tests. The distributions of fracture aperture and its evolution during shear were calculated from the initial aperture fields, based on the laser-scanned surface roughness features of replicas of rock fracture specimens, and shear dilations measured during the coupled shear-flow tests in laboratory. The coupled shear-flow tests were performed under two levels of constant normal loading (CNL). The simulation results agreed well with the flow rate data obtained from the laboratory tests, showing that complex histories of fracture aperture and tortuous flow channels with changing normal stresses and increasing shear displacements for the flow parallel with the shear direction. From the obtained flow velocity fields, the particle transport was predicted by using a streamline particle tracking method with calculated flow velocity fields (vectors) from the flow simulations, obtaining results such as flow velocity profiles, total flow rates, particle travel time, breakthrough curves and the Péclet number, Pe. The effect of normal stress on the particle transport is significant and dispersion becomes larger with increasing normal stress.
