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Water uptake in rock fractures caused by rainfall plays a significant role in slope stability analysis. Since the fracture network system has complicated structures and multiple scales, the models based on the averaged system cannot account for these properties. On the other hand, a model describing a single fracture with fractal characteristics and surface roughness fails to deal with the case of multiple fractures at spatial scales. In this study, a fracture-network model is established to account for the complex structures and multiple scales of fractures. By considering the connectivity between fractures and the limited area of aquifer, capillary pressure formulations in different fractures are derived based on the Young-Laplace equation, and the final water level under specific rainfall conditions is also obtained. The cross-section shapes and exhaust conditions of rainwater infiltration have important influences on the final water level. The results indicate that the final water level is proportional to the ratio of perimeter to cross-section area when the fracture is a cylinder, and a circular pipe can reduce water level elevation in the fracture system.


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Water uptake in parallel fractures

Show Author's information Junjie Wang1Xingyu Zhu2Yixin Pan1( )Jisheng Kou1Shuyu Sun2
Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics and Geohazards of Zhejiang Province, Shaoxing 312000, P. R. China
Computational Transport Phenomena Laboratory, Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Water uptake in rock fractures caused by rainfall plays a significant role in slope stability analysis. Since the fracture network system has complicated structures and multiple scales, the models based on the averaged system cannot account for these properties. On the other hand, a model describing a single fracture with fractal characteristics and surface roughness fails to deal with the case of multiple fractures at spatial scales. In this study, a fracture-network model is established to account for the complex structures and multiple scales of fractures. By considering the connectivity between fractures and the limited area of aquifer, capillary pressure formulations in different fractures are derived based on the Young-Laplace equation, and the final water level under specific rainfall conditions is also obtained. The cross-section shapes and exhaust conditions of rainwater infiltration have important influences on the final water level. The results indicate that the final water level is proportional to the ratio of perimeter to cross-section area when the fracture is a cylinder, and a circular pipe can reduce water level elevation in the fracture system.

Keywords: Two-phase flow, capillary pressure, rainfall intensity, groundwater, fracture network

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Publication history

Received: 03 January 2021
Revised: 16 January 2021
Accepted: 17 January 2021
Published: 21 January 2021
Issue date: March 2021

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© The Author(s) 2021

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The authors are grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their detailed reviews and constructive comments which helped to improve this manuscript.

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This article is distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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