• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.79-88
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• 2012

Migration tests were performed with conservative tracers in a fractured zone that had a single fracture of about 2.5 m distance at the KURT. To interpret the migration of the tracers in the fractured rock, a solute transport model was developed. A two dimensional variable aperture channel model was adopted to describe the fractured path and hydrology, and a particle tracking method was used for solute transport. The simulation tried not only to develop a migration model of solutes for open flow environments but also to produce ideas for a better understanding of solute behaviours in indefinable fracture zones by comparing them to experimental results. The results of our simulations and experiments are described as elution and breakthrough curves, and are quantified by momentum analysis. The main retardation mechanism of nonsorbing tracers, including matrixdiffusion, was investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.43-52
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• 2012

To compute a permeability coefficient along a rough fracture that takes into account the fracture geometry, this study performed detailed measurements of fracture roughness using a confocal laser scanning microscope, a quantitative analysis of roughness using a spectral analysis, and a homogenization analysis to calculate the permeability coefficient on the microand macro-scale. The homogenization analysis is a type of perturbation theory that characterizes the behavior of microscopically inhomogeneous material with a periodic boundary condition in the microstructure. Therefore, it is possible to analyze accurate permeability characteristics that are represented by the local effect of the facture geometry. The Cpermeability coefficients that are calculated using the homogenization analysis for each rough fracture model exhibit an irregular distribution and do not follow the relationship of the cubic law. This distribution suggests that the permeability characteristics strongly depend on the geometric conditions of the fractures, such as the roughness and the aperture variation. The homogenization analysis may allow us to produce more accurate results than are possible with the preexisting equations for calculating permeability.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 1994

The study on the flow characteristics and analysis of groundwater in discontinuous rock mass is very important, since the water inflow into the underground opening during excavation induces serious stability and environmental problems. To investigate the flow through single rock joint, the effect of various aperture distribution on the groundwater flow has been analyzed. Observed through the analysis is the "channel flow", the phenomenon that the flow is dominant along the path of large aperture for given joint. The equivalent hydraulic conductivity is estimated and verified through the application of the joint network analysis for 100 joint maps generated statistically. Both the analytic aproach based on isotropic continuum premise and the joint network analysis are tested and compared analyzing the gorundwater inflow for underground openings of different sizes and varying joint density. The joint network analysis is considered better to reflect the geometric properties of joint distribution in analyzing the groundwater flow.ater flow.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.197-213
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• 2019

We simulated the fault reactivation experiment conducted at 'Main Fault' intersecting the low permeability clay formations of Mont Terri Underground Research Laboratory in Switzerland using TOUGH-FLAC simulator. The fluid flow along a fault was modelled with solid elements and governed by Darcy's law with the cubic law in TOUGH2, whereas the mechanical behavior of a single fault was represented by creating interface elements between two separating rock blocks in FLAC3D. We formulate the hydro-mechanical coupling relation of hydraulic aperture to consider the elastic fracture opening and failure-induced dilation for reproducing the abrupt changes in injection flow rate and monitoring pressure at fracture opening pressure. A parametric study was conducted to examine the effects of in-situ stress condition and fault deformation and strength parameters and to find the optimal parameter set to reproduce the field observations. In the best matching simulation, the fracture opening pressure and variations of injection flow rate and monitoring pressure showed good agreement with field experiment results, which suggests the capability of the numerical model to reasonably capture the fracture opening and propagation process. The model overestimated the fault displacement in shear direction and the range of reactivated zone, which was attributed to the progressive shear failures along the fault at high injection pressure. In the field experiment results, however, fracture tensile opening seems the dominant mechanism affecting the hydraulic aperture increase.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.279-294
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• 2001

When constructing subsurface structures and drilling wells, the precise hydraulic parameters must be obtained for operating safety and for developing enough quantity of groundwater, respectively. In this study we conducted water injection test at different depths on six boreholes drilled in the granite of Mt. Geumjeong. Hydraulic conductivity was calculated using Moye and Hvorslev methods. The relation between hydraulic conductivity and fracture frequency data obtained from acoustic televiewer and core log was analyzed. From the result, though the correlation coefficient between the hydraulic conductivity and the fracture frequency from acoustic televiewer data is higher than that between the hydraulic conductivity and the fracture frequency from core log data on most of the test holes, the correlation coefficient between the hydraulic conductivity and the fracture frequency from the televiewer data is lower than 0.5. This suggests that the hydraulic conductivity of granite in the study area is influenced not only by the fracture frequency but also by various factors of fracture network such as fracture aperture and length, interconnectivity of fractures, fracture orientation and angle, filling material and so on.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.6
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• pp.585-594
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• 2019

In-situ leaching could be one of the promising mining methods to extract the minerals from deep fractured rock mass. Constrained by the low permeability at depth, however, the performance does not meet the expectation. In fact, the rock mass permeability mainly depends on the pre-existing natural fractures and therefore play a crucial role in in-situ leaching performance. More importantly, fractures have various characteristics, such as aperture, persistence, and density, which have diverse contributions to the promising method. Hence, it is necessary to study the variation of fluid rate versus fracture parameters to enhance in-situ leaching performance. Firstly, the subsurface fractures from the depth of 1500m to 2500m were mapped using the discrete fracture network (DFN) in this paper, and then the numerical model was calibrated at a particular case. On this basis, the fluid flow through fractured rock mass with various fracture characteristics was analyzed. The simulation results showed that with the increase of Fisher' K value, which determine the fracture orientation, the flow rate firstly decreased and then increased. Subsequently, as another critical factor affecting the fluid flow in natural fractures, the fracture transmissivity has a direct relationship with the flow rate. Sensitive study shows that natural fracture characteristics play a critical role in in-situ leaching performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Groundwater Environment
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.111-115
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• 1997

Discrete fracture model has become one of the alternatives for the classical continuum model to simulate the irregular aspects of the fluid flow and the solute transport in fractured rocks. It is based on the assumptions that the discharge in a single fracture is proportional to the cube of the aperture and the fractured rock can be represented by the statistical assemblage of such single fractures. This study is intended to evaluate the effect of the fracture junction on the cubic law. Numerical solution of flow in junction system was obtained by using the Boundary-Fitted Coordinate System (BFCS) method. Results with different intersection angles in crossing fractures show that the geometry of the junction affects the discharge pattern under the same simulation conditions. Therefore, strict numerical and experimental examinations on this subject are required.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.247-254
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• 2014

The compressibility of fracture in naturally fractured reservoir is larger than the compressibility of matrix in rock, although the compressibility of a typical rock is very small. The effective compressibility including the fracture compressibility should be considered to predict oil recovery correctly. It is hard to quantify changes of fracture aperture and pore volume in reservoir without the effective compressibility. In this study, oil recovery is analyzed by commercial simulator concerning the fracture compressibility based on fracture properties. We found that the effective compressibility affects oil recovery with change of polymer flooding factors such as polymer molar weight, concentration and injection rate. The estimated cumulative oil production is smaller with the effective compressibility than without it. Also, bottomhole pressure decreases rapidly without considering effective fracture compressibility.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.303-311
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• 2017

The correlation analysis between the results obtained from DFN flow model and equivalent continuum flow model were conducted on total of 72 DFN blocks having various fracture geometry and domain size. A strong linear relation seems to exist between the two approaches under condition that normalized relative error for continuum behavior (ER) is less than 0.2, and the results from both methods are found to almost identical. To explore the field applicability of equivalent continuum flow model in DFN media, a total of 48 numerical schemes related to inflow of underground circular openings were implemented under various DFN configurations. The equivalent continuum flow model in DFN media with a constant hydraulic aperture was evaluated as valid. However, as the anisotropy increases due to variation of the hydraulic aperture, the results are likely to be overestimated compare to the DFN flow model.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.5-14
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• 2009

This study is to analyze numerically the spatial behaviors of the solute transport in a spatially correlated variable-aperture fracture under the effective normal stress conditions. Numerical results show that the solute transport in a fracture is strongly affected by the spatial correlation length of apertures and applied effective normal stress. According to increasing spatial correlation length, the mean residence time of solute is decreased and the tortuosity and Peclet number (is a dimensionless number relating the rate of advection of a flow to its rate of diffusion) is also decreased. These results mean that the geometry of the aperture distribution is favorable to the solute transport as the spatial correlation length is increased. However, according to the applied effective normal stress is increased, the mean residence time and tortuosity have a tendency to increase but the Peclet number is decreased. The main reason that the Peclet number is decreased, is that the solute is displaced by one or two channels with relatively higher local flow rate due to the increment of contact areas by increasing effective normal stress. Moreover, based on numerical results of the solute transport in this study, the exponential-type correlation formulae between the mean residence time and the effective normal stress are proposed.