Using 3D-printed fracture networks to obtain porosity, permeability, and tracer response datasets

An in-depth understanding of flow through fractured me-dia is vital to optimise engineering applications, including geothermal energy production, enhanced oil recovery, CO2 storage, and nuclear waste disposal. Advances in 3D-printing technologies have made it possible to generate 3D printed fracture networks with different fracture characteristics. By performing fluid flow experiments in the 3D-printed frac-tured networks, the impact of the fracture parameters, such as the density, orientation, aperture, dip, and azimuth, on the overall flow can be investigated. This data article con-tains a detailed description of the framework followed to design fractured networks with different fracture parame-ters and to create 3D-printed samples, including fracture net-works. Furthermore, it contains the experimental protocols used to measure the porosity, permeability, and tracer re-sponses of the 3D-printed samples. The generated datasets provided include geometry data describing the fracture net-works, as well as porosity, permeability and tracer response data obtained from flow experiments conducted in the frac-ture networks. (C) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )