Network properties of a two-dimensional natural fracture pattern

Abstract

The influence that fractures exert on the permeability of a fractured rock is, to a large extent, controlled by the nature of the network formed by the fracture system. Here, the network properties of a two-dimensional natural pattern, mapped from the surface of a sandstone layer, are investigated and compared to those of realizations of spatially randomly distributed line segments with similar orientation and length distributions and line segment density (line length per unit area) to the natural pattern. These patterns are composed of clusters of varying size and shape, made up of interconnected fracture traces or line segments. Comparing the natural pattern with the realizations, the natural pattern was found to contain roughly half the number of clusters while the mass (total line length) of the largest cluster is approximately double that of the realizations. The size of the largest cluster controls the connectivity of the patterns, as can be seen by comparing the largest cluster of the natural pattern, which connects all four sides of the region, with those of the realizations, which are unconnected or connect only two sides. Cluster scaling characteristics were found to be similar in the natural pattern and the realizations and show a crossover from a dimension of one (their topological dimension) to two (the dimension of the embedding medium) at a point that corresponds to the fracture spacing. An investigation of the self-similarity dimension, using the box-counting method, showed similar characteristics with a broad transition zone between one- and two-dimensional behaviour at smaller box sizes. The patterns are therefore found to be non-fractal. The effect of the spatial distribution shown by the natural pattern is thus to modify the manner in which fractures are distributed among clusters, increasing connectivity (and permeability in the case of open fractures), but does not affect the cluster scaling characteristics or the self-similarity dimension of the fracture patterns.