Solute Transport in Natural Fractures Based on Digital Image Technology

A method of fracture boundary extraction was developed using the Gaussian template and Canny boundary detection on the basis of the collected digital images of natural fractures. The roughness and apertures of the fractures were briefly discussed from the point of view of digital image analysis. The extracted fractured image was translated into a lattice image which can be directly used in numerical simulation. The lattice Boltzmann and modified moment propagation mixed method was then applied to the simulation of solute transport in a natural single fracture, and this mixed method could take the advantages of the lattice Boltzmann method in dealing with complex physical boundaries. The obtained concentrations was fitted with the CXTFIT2.1 code and compared with the results obtained with the commercial software Feflow. The comparison indicates that the simulation using the mixed method is sound.