Abstract:
There is a complex and huge fracture network composed of a large number of natural fractures in the rock and soil body, and surface water seepage along the cracks will cause the change of physical properties of rock and soil. In this paper, the phase field method is used to simulate the two-phase interface, and the finite element method is used to simulate the drip flow in the intersecting fracture network with different geometric structures. The paper explores the influence of the geometric structure of cross fractures (fracture width ratio, inclination angle, crack angle, etc.) on the split-flow behavior of droplets at the intersection. Additionally, the XGBoost method is used to conduct the feature importance analysis with three parameters of the geometric structure. The results indicate that: by comparing with experimental results from the literature, the accuracy and effectiveness of the computational method are verified; droplets at the fracture intersection exhibit four flow patterns: complete diversion, partial diversion without drag, partial diversion with drag, and no diversion; as the fracture width ratio( ), the overall angle between the fracture and the horizontal plane, and the angle between fractures increase, the diversion ratio( ) of the droplets decreases and may even result in no diversion; particularly, when the droplet length is 2 cm, a significant drag phenomenon occurs at , droplets completely divert into another channel at , and at , droplets cease to flow upon reaching the intersection and are stored in the fracture; through feature importance analysis, it is found that the overall angle between the fracture and the horizontal plane and the angle between fractures have a much greater impact on the diversion behavior of droplets than the fracture width ratio( ). Extending this computational model to a network of fractures, the model simulates the unsaturated seepage in surface water accumulation within fracture structures in nature. It is found that unsaturated flow phenomena often occur in fracture structures due to the "blocking effect" of air within the fractures, and the "dominant channels" chosen by droplets are closely related to the straightness of the channels between the inlet and outlet and the flow area. The results can provide a theoretical analysis foundation and methodological reference for the seepage simulation and engineering design of random fractures and fracture structures in engineering.