Abstract
In hydraulically modelling a rock fracture system, we usually model the rock mass as a continuous porous medium. But one of the important questions that arises is whether or not the fracture network behaves like a porous medium and when it does, what is the appropriate permeability tensor for the medium. Answers for this problem have recently been proposed in several ways and qualitative approaches are in progress rapidly. However, even if the rock fracture network behaves like a porous medium, clear distinct faults or fractures should be recognized as main conduits for fluid flow in rock masses. In our approach, combination of flow in the equivalent porous medium for fine fractures and flow in the planar large fractures is considered. A finite element code has been developed to determine the hydraulic behabior of such discontinuous systems.
