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Article
Open AccessA New Simplified Discrete Fracture Model for Shearing of Intersecting Fractures and Faults
Shearing of fractures and faults is important because it can result in permeability change or even induce seismicity—both are keys for efficient and safe energy recovery and storage in Earth systems. Quantitat...
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Article
Open AccessThermo-Hydro-Mechanical Modeling of Brine Migration in a Heated Borehole Test in Bedded Salt
This research paper focuses on the thermo-hydro-mechanical (THM) modeling of brine migration in a heated borehole test conducted as part of the ongoing Brine Availability Test in Salt (BATS) at the Waste Isola...
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Article
Open AccessMicroscale THMC Modeling of Pressure Solution in Salt Rock: Impacts of Geometry and Temperature
Pressure solution, a mechanism that involves tight coupling between the geometry and thermal-hydro-mechanical-chemical (THMC) processes, plays an important role in diagenesis. In this study, we make the first ...
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Article
Open AccessLong-term sinking of nuclear waste canisters in salt formations by low-stress creep at high temperature
Rock salt has a self-sealing capacity, low permeability, and high thermal conductivity, making it a potential host for heat-generating nuclear waste. The feasibility of nuclear waste disposal within salt forma...
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Article
Open AccessTOUGH3-FLAC3D: a modeling approach for parallel computing of fluid flow and geomechanics
The recent development of the TOUGH3 code allows for a faster and more reliable fluid flow simulator. At the same time, new versions of FLAC3D are released periodically, allowing for new features and faster ex...
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Article
Open AccessMulti-scale Coupled Processes Modeling of Fractures as Porous, Interfacial and Granular Systems from Rock Images with the Numerical Manifold Method
The greatest challenges of rigorously modeling coupled hydro-mechanical processes in fractured rocks at different scales are associated with computational geometry. In addition, selections of continuous or dis...
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Article
Guest Editorial to the CouFrac 2018 Special Issue Coupled Thermal-Hydro-Mechanical-Chemical Processes in Fractured Media: Microscale to Macroscale Numerical Modeling
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Article
Finite volume modeling of coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical processes with application to brine migration in salt
The disposal of heat-generating nuclear waste in salt host rock generates a thermal gradient around the waste package that may cause brine inclusions in the salt grains to migrate toward the waste package. In ...
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Article
Open AccessMicroscale mechanical modeling of deformable geomaterials with dynamic contacts based on the numerical manifold method
Micromechanical modeling of geomaterials is challenging because of the complex geometry of discontinuities and potentially large number of deformable material bodies that contact each other dynamically. In thi...
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Article
Modeling Three-Dimensional Fluid-Driven Propagation of Multiple Fractures using TOUGH-FEMM
In this paper, a new numerical simulation tool named TOUGH-FEMM is presented and applied to model three-dimensional (3D) hydraulic fracturing in porous rock. The fluid flow in both fractures and porous rock is...
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Article
Fully coupled hydro-mechanical numerical manifold modeling of porous rock with dominant fractures
Coupled hydro-mechanical (HM) processes are significant in geological engineering such as oil and gas extraction, geothermal energy, nuclear waste disposal and for the safety assessment of dam foundations and ...
