Measurement of fracture aperture fields using transmitted light: An evaluation of measurement errors and their influence on simulations of flow and transport through a single fracture

Understanding of single-phase and multiphase flow and transport in fractures can be greatly enhanced through experimentation in transparent systems (analogs or replicas) where light transmission techniques yield quantitative measurements of aperture, solute concentration, and phase saturation fields. Here we quantify aperture field measurement error and demonstrate the influence of this error on the results of flow and transport simulations (hypothesized experimental results) through saturated and partially saturated fractures. We find that precision and accuracy can be balanced to greatly improve the technique and present a measurement protocol to obtain a minimum error field. Simulation results show an increased sensitivity to error as we move from flow to transport and from saturated to partially saturated conditions. Significant sensitivity under partially saturated conditions results in differences in channeling and multiple-peaked breakthrough curves. These results emphasize the critical importance of defining and minimizing error for studies of flow and transport in single fractures.