Hydro-mechanical coupling of flow in deformable high-aspect ratio fractures

Abstract

Underground flow processes in fractured porous media possess a great significance regarding the optimization of energy production based on natural resources. Energy is stored in form of liquids, respectively heat in the underground and its excavation is highly impacted by discontinuities of the porous medium's transport characteristics such as induced by discrete fractures or fracture networks. Throughout the exploitation flow processes might become fairly complex, since fractures do not simply increase the permeability and induce preferential flow paths within the reservoir, they also reduce the stiffness of the surrounding rock mass. Therefore, the objective of this thesis is to derive a numerically efficient hydro-mechanical model for flow in fractured porous media in which the reduction of the fracture flow domain by one dimension increases the computational performance. The derived model is then applied to data obtained from field-scale pumping operations in fractured reservoirs to contribute to a better understanding of hydro-mechanical processes under in-situ conditions.