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| Mechanisms of fracture roughness effects on flow-dissolution processes |
| HU Ran1, 2, JIANG Qiurong1, 2, ZHOU Chenxing1, 2*, LI Kai1, 2, YANG Zhibing1, 2, CHEN Yifeng1, 2 |
(1. State Key Laboratory of Water Resources Engineering and Management, Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430072, China;
2. Key Laboratory of Rock Mechanics in Hydraulic Structural Engineering of the Ministry of Education,
Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei 430072, China) |
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Abstract Fluid flow and dissolution in fractured rock widely occur in natural and engineering settings, such as karst development, long-term seepage control of dam foundations, and efficient oil and gas production. As an intrinsic property of fractures, roughness plays a key role in dissolution dynamics, yet its influence mechanism remains insufficiently understood. In this study, a Darcy-scale flow-dissolution numerical model based on the depth-averaging method is developed, and a series of laboratory experiments on flow and dissolution in rough salt-rock fractures are conducted to validate the accuracy and reliability of the simulations. On this basis, the evolution of dissolution patterns, permeability, breakthrough time of dissolution channels, and optimal injection rate is systematically investigated under different fracture roughness and flow rates. The results show that, with increasing flow rate, the dissolution pattern evolves sequentially from compact dissolution to wormhole and then to uniform dissolution, and the corresponding relationships between permeability and fracture aperture exhibit sub-cubic, super-cubic, and cubic trends, respectively. At a given flow rate, increasing fracture roughness enhances local flow heterogeneity, leading to the coexistence of high-velocity channels and low-velocity stagnant zones, which promotes preferential growth of dissolution channels, accelerates wormhole formation and breakthrough, and thus shortens the channel breakthrough time. However, once roughness exceeds a certain threshold, pronounced flow bifurcation and dispersion occur near the wormhole tip, weakening the positive feedback between flow and dissolution and causing the breakthrough time to level off. Further analysis indicates that larger roughness requires higher injection rates to maintain the coupled positive feedback between flow and dissolution and to sustain a typical wormhole, implying that the optimal injection rate increases with roughness. This study elucidates how fracture roughness regulates flow heterogeneity and flow–dissolution feedback to govern channel formation, breakthrough, and optimal injection rate. The findings provide important guidance for predicting early-time leakage in dissolution-driven seepage evolution and for determining optimal injection rates in acidizing stimulation engineering.
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