Title
Rigorous Upscaling of Unsaturated Flow in Fractured Porous Media
Abstract
In this work, we consider a mathematical model for flow in an unsaturated porous medium containing a fracture. In all subdomains (the fracture and the adjacent matrix blocks) the flow is governed by Richards' equation. The submodels are coupled by physical transmission conditions expressing the continuity of the normal fluxes and of the pressures. We start by analyzing the case of a fracture having a fixed width-length ratio, called epsilon > 0. Then we take the limit epsilon -> 0 and give a rigorous proof for the convergence toward effective models. This is done in different regimes, depending on how the ratio of porosities and permeabilities in the fracture, respectively, in the matrix, scale in terms of epsilon, and leads to a variety of effective models. Numerical simulations confirm the theoretical upscaling results.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1137/18M1203754
SIAM JOURNAL ON MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS
Keywords
Field
DocType
Richards' equation,fractured porous media,upscaling,unsaturated flow in porous media,existence and uniqueness of weak solutions
Matrix (mathematics),Mathematical analysis,Flow (psychology),Richards equation,Porous medium,Mathematics
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
52
1
0036-1410
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
4
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Florian List100.34
Kundan Kumar2133.63
Iuliu Sorin Pop36713.97
Florin A. Radu4338.58