GRAVITATIONAL FORCES IN DUAL-POROSITY SYSTEMS .2. COMPUTATIONAL VALIDATION OF THE HOMOGENIZED MODEL

Three models are considered for single component, single phase flow in naturally fractured porous media. The microscopic model holds on the Darcy scale, and it is considered to govern the system. The macroscopi c, dual-porosity model was derived in Part I of this work from the mic roscopic model by two-scale mathematical homogenization. In this paper , we show that the dual-porosity model predicts well the behavior of t he microscopic model by comparing their computed solutions in certain reasonable test cases. Homogenization gives a complex formula for a ke y parameter in the dual-porosity model; herein a simple approximation to this formula is presented. The third model considered is a single-p orosity model with averaged parameters. It is shown that this type of model cannot predict the behavior of the microscopic flow.