• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.149-161
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• 2019

In this study, the effect of the fluid flow characteristics on the length distribution of the fracture elements composing the fracture network is analyzed numerically using the 3D fracture crack network model. The truncated power-law distribution is applied to generate the length distribution of the fracture elements and the simulations of fluid flow are carried out with the exponent ${\beta}_l$ from 1.0 to 6.0. As a result of simulations, when the exponent ${\beta}_l$ increases, the length distribution of the fracture elements gradually decreases, and the connectivity between the fracture elements affecting the permeability of the fracture network becomes weak. When we analyzed the distributions of flow rate calculated at each fracture element with the exponent ${\beta}_l$, the mean flow rate at ${\beta}_l=1.0$ was estimated to be about 447 times larger than that at ${\beta}_l=6.0$ and for the flow calculated at the outflow boundary of the fracture network, the case of ${\beta}_l=1.0$ was estimated to be 6,440 times larger than that of ${\beta}_l=6.0$.