dfnWorks: A discrete fracture network framework for modeling subsurface flow and transport

dfnWorks is a parallelized computational suite to generate three-dimensional discrete fracture networks (DFN) and simulate flow and transport. Developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory over the past five years, it has been used to study flow and transport in fractured media at scales ranging from millimeters to kilometers. The networks are created and meshed using dfnGen, which combines fram (the feature rejection algorithm for meshing) methodology to stochastically generate three-dimensional DFNs with the LaGriT meshing toolbox to create a high-quality computational mesh representation. The representation produces a conforming Delaunay triangulation suitable for high performance computing finite volume solvers in an intrinsically parallel fashion. Flow through the network is simulated in dfnFlow, which utilizes the massively parallel subsurface flow and reactive transport finite volume code pflotran. A Lagrangian approach to simulating transport through the DFN is adopted within dfnTrans to determine pathlines and solute transport through the DFN. Example applications of this suite in the areas of nuclear waste repository science, hydraulic fracturing and CO2 sequestration are also included. •We provide an overview of the HPC DFN flow and transport suite dfnWorks.•Dfnworks combine FRAM, LaGriT, PFLOTRAN, and Lagrangian transport simulations.•Three applications are presented to demonstrate the utility of dfnWorks.