The work presented in this paper is focused on the assessment of hydraulic conductivity in sparsely fractured rocks. Different simplified methodologies are used, including Oda's notion of permeability tensor as well as pipe network models, and the results are compared with those generated by a more accurate approach, which incorporates a constitutive law with embedded discontinuity (CLED). Several numerical examples involving fluid flow in the presence of discrete fracture networks are provided, and the estimates of principal values as well as eigenvectors of the equivalent conductivity tensor are compared for all methodologies employed. It is demonstrated that the predictions corresponding to pipe-network model, enhanced by the graph theory algorithm, are fairly consistent with CLED approach, particularly in terms of assessing the orientation of principal directions of permeability. A simple pragmatic procedure is therefore suggested for defining the anisotropic equivalent hydraulic conductivity operator.

中文翻译：

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稀疏裂隙岩体等效渗透率张量的量化


本文的工作重点是评估稀疏裂隙岩石的导水率。使用不同的简化方法，包括 Oda 的渗透率张量概念以及管网模型，并将结果与​​更准确的方法生成的结果进行比较，该方法结合了嵌入不连续性的本构定律 (CLED)。提供了涉及离散裂缝网络存在下的流体流动的几个数值示例，并对所有采用的方法对等效电导率张量的主值和特征向量的估计进行了比较。结果表明，通过图论算法增强的管网模型对应的预测与 CLED 方法相当一致，特别是在评估渗透率主方向的方向方面。因此，建议使用简单实用的程序来定义各向异性等效水力传导率算子。