HOMOGENIZATION OF COMPOSITIONAL FLOW
IN FRACTURED POROUS MEDIA

TODD ARBOGAST and ZHANGXIN CHEN

Abstract:
We derive a dual-porosity model of multidimensional, multicomponent,
three-phase flow in naturally fractured porous media from the (formal)
mathematical theory of homogenization.  Special attention is paid to
developing a general approach to incorporating gravitational forces
and effects of mass transfer between phases.  In particular, general
equations for the interactions between matrix and fracture systems are
obtained under homogenization by a careful scaling of these effects.

Keywords:
homogenization, dual-porosity, fractured porous medium, compositional flow