EVALUATION OF SCALE EFFECTS ON HYDRAULIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FRACTURED ROCK USING FRACTURE NETWORK MODEL

Abstract

It is important to take into account scale effects on fracture geometry if the modeling scale is much larger than the in-situ observation scale. The scale effect on fracture trace length, which is the most scale dependent parameter, is investigated using fracture maps obtained at various scales in tunnel and dam sites. We found that the distribution of fracture trace length follows negative power law distribution in regardless of locations and rock types. The hydraulic characteristics of fractured rock is also investigated by numerical analysis of discrete fracture network (DFN) model where power law distribution of fracture radius is adopted. We found that as the exponent of power law distribution become larger, the hydraulic conductivity of DFN model increases and the travel time in DFN model decreases.