Numerical Modeling of a Groundwater Flow in Fractured Porous Media Based on the DFM Approach

The approaches used to model a groundwater flow in fractured porous media are reviewed and their merits and shortcomings are discussed. The discrete fracture and matrix (DFM) model implemented in the GeRa software is described, emphasizing its capacity to explicitly consider the geometry of fractures and the water exchange between fractures and the porous matrix. The use of a multipoint flux approximation on the fracture within the finite volume method based on the O‑scheme is proposed. The implemented numerical scheme is applied to solve a practical problem of estimating the water inflow into an underground research laboratory in a fractured rock massif.