Coupled modeling of damage growth and permeability variation in brittle rocks

This paper presents a coupled model for anisotropic damage and permeability evolution by using a micro–macro approach. The damage state is represented by a second order tensor. The evolution of damage is determined from a crack propagation criterion. The free enthalpy function of cracked material is obtained by using micromechanical considerations. It is assumed that cracks exhibit normal aperture which is coupled with the crack growth due to asperities of crack faces. By using Darcy’s law for macroscopic fluid flow and assuming laminar flow in microcracks, the overall permeability of the RVE is obtained by a volume averaging procedure taking into account crack aperture in each orientation.