Modeling of fluid flow through fractured porous media by a single boundary integral equation

The objective of this work is to provide theoretical materials for modelling two-dimensional fluid flow through an anisotropic porous medium containing intersecting curved fractures. These theoretical developments are suitable for numerical simulations using boundary element method and thus present a great advantage in mesh generation term comparing to finite volume discretization approaches when dealing with high fracture density and infinite configuration. The flow is modelled by Darcy's law in matrix and Poiseuille's law in fractures. The mass conservation equations, at a point on the fracture and an intersection point between fractures in the presence of a source or a sink, are derived explicitly. A single boundary integral equation is developed to describe the fluid flow through both porous media and fractures, i.e. the whole domain, which includes particularly the mass balance condition at intersection between fractures. Numerical simulations are performed to show the efficiency of this proposed theoretical formulation for high crack density. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.