TY - JOUR
T1 - Copula-based simulating and analyzing methods of rock mass fractures
AU - Han, Shuai
AU - Li, Mingchao
AU - Wang, Gang
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by the Tianjin Natural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scientists of China (Grant no. 17JCJQJC44000 ) and the National Natural Science Foundation for Excellent Young Scientists of China (Grant no. 51622904 ). The authors gratefully acknowledge the valuable suggestions of the two anonymous reviewers.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2020/11
Y1 - 2020/11
N2 - The uncertainty analysis of fractures is always an important task in studying the structures of rock masses. Traditional univariate and bivariate statistical methods have limitations for considering the dependence among fracture parameters. For this purpose, a set of simulation and analysis approaches were developed for describing the geometric uncertainties of fractures based on Copula theory. In this regard, the main contributions of this research include: (1) the applicability and advantage of Copula theory in fitting and simulating fracture parameters were validated through modeling a set of orientation data and the relationship between the length and aperture of a set of traces; (2) the difficult problem of assigning apertures to the disk fractures of a discrete fracture network (DFN) was solved by linking aperture and fracture size using “pseudo-trace” and copula functions, and then by implicitly establishing the relationship between aperture, trace length, and fracture size; and finally an enhanced DFN modeling method, oblate ellipsoid method, was proposed. Technically, the former belongs to the fundamental usage of copula, and the latter is an improvement for the Baecher disk method through increasing the dimension of fractures from 2D to 3D and is believed to be a reference for solving further problems involving rock mass fractures, such as permeability related issues, geothermal reservoirs exploitation, coalbed methane extraction, and integrity analysis.
AB - The uncertainty analysis of fractures is always an important task in studying the structures of rock masses. Traditional univariate and bivariate statistical methods have limitations for considering the dependence among fracture parameters. For this purpose, a set of simulation and analysis approaches were developed for describing the geometric uncertainties of fractures based on Copula theory. In this regard, the main contributions of this research include: (1) the applicability and advantage of Copula theory in fitting and simulating fracture parameters were validated through modeling a set of orientation data and the relationship between the length and aperture of a set of traces; (2) the difficult problem of assigning apertures to the disk fractures of a discrete fracture network (DFN) was solved by linking aperture and fracture size using “pseudo-trace” and copula functions, and then by implicitly establishing the relationship between aperture, trace length, and fracture size; and finally an enhanced DFN modeling method, oblate ellipsoid method, was proposed. Technically, the former belongs to the fundamental usage of copula, and the latter is an improvement for the Baecher disk method through increasing the dimension of fractures from 2D to 3D and is believed to be a reference for solving further problems involving rock mass fractures, such as permeability related issues, geothermal reservoirs exploitation, coalbed methane extraction, and integrity analysis.
KW - Copula theory
KW - Dependency between fracture parameters
KW - Discrete fracture network
KW - Geometric characteristic of fractures
KW - Oblate ellipsoid method
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090007657&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.compgeo.2020.103779
DO - 10.1016/j.compgeo.2020.103779
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85090007657
SN - 0266-352X
VL - 127
JO - Computers and Geotechnics
JF - Computers and Geotechnics
M1 - 103779
ER -