Science Group
Question:
How does size effect permeability?
Sorry guys, this is all my Earth Science teacher gave me for my project.
Answers:
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Posted by bobolin on Thursday May 8, 2008 at 5:04 AM
When the fracture is closed without shearing and has the same mean aperture, the effect of the fracture size on the hydraulic aperture disappears if the fracture is larger than about 0.2m, since beyond this size the standard deviation of the initial aperture is almost independent of the fracture size. When the fracture is closed after shearing, the hydraulic conductivity shows remarkable anisotropy, which becomes more significant with both shear displacement and closure. However, the relation between the hydraulic aperture normalized by the mean aperture and the mean aperture normalized by the standard deviation of the initial aperture is almost independent of both the fracture size and shear displacement when the shear displacement is less than about 3.1% of the fracture size, at which point the standard deviation of the initial aperture of the sheared fracture is almost independent of the fracture size.

