Meshing Strategies and the Impact of Finite Element Quality on the Velocity Field in Fractured Media

Géraldine Pichot (1) , Patrick Laug (2) , Jocelyne Erhel (1) , Jean E. Roberts (3) , Jérôme Jaffré (3) , Jean-Raynald de Dreuzy (4)

1 SAGE - Simulations and Algorithms on Grids for Environment
2 Gamma3 - Automatic mesh generation and advanced methods
3 POMDAPI - Environmental Modeling, Optimization and Programming Models
4 GR - Géosciences Rennes

For calculating flow in a fracture network, the mixed hybrid finite element (MHFE) method is a method of choice as it yields a symmetric, positive definite linear system. However, a drawback to this method is its sensitivity to bad aspect ratio elements. For poor-quality triangles, elementary matrices are ill-conditioned, and inconsistent velocity vectors are obtained by inverting these local matrices. Here we present different strategies for better reconstruction of the velocity field.

Domaines: Analyse numérique [math.NA]; Géophysique [physics.geo-ph]; Géométrie algorithmique [cs.CG]

Géraldine Pichot, Patrick Laug, Jocelyne Erhel, Jean E. Roberts, Jérôme Jaffré, et al.. Meshing Strategies and the Impact of Finite Element Quality on the Velocity Field in Fractured Media. SIAM Annual Meeting, Jul 2014, Chicago, United States. ⟨hal-01074807⟩