Influence of surface roughness on nonlinear flow behaviors in 3D self-affine rough fractures: Lattice Boltzmann simulations

This study investigates the impacts of surface roughness on the nonlinear fluid flow through three-dimensional (3D) self-affine rock fractures, whose original surface roughness is decomposed into primary roughness (i.e. the large-scale waviness of the fracture morphology) and secondary roughness (i.e. the small-scale unevenness) with a wavelet analysis technique. A 3D Lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) is adopted to predict the flow physics in rock...