Study of the Wetting Conditions of Different Fracture Surface Models

FUENTES, N. AND FAVRET, E.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Workshop; II Workshop on Conceptual and Numerical Modeling for Radioactive Waste Repositories. Theoretical and Experimental Studies for Site Selection; 2007

Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica

To evaluate the geometrical characteristics of surface topography that make possible the use of the no-slip approximation as a valid boundary condition, several studies have been performed with different experimental fracture models. It was found that the only measure of the static contact angle of water drops on the different surfaces, allows identifying the ranges of applicability of this condition. RIMAPS analysis of the model surfaces demonstrated that it is not possible to obtain a common topographic pattern that guarantees the application of the no-slip condition. Variogram results determine the existence of three ranges of length scales of the topographic patterns where the no-slip boundary condition verifies different degrees of applicability.