The Fracture Flow (ff) interface (
), found under the
Porous Media and Subsurface Flow branch (
) when adding a physics interface, is used to simulate flow along faults and fractures represented as boundaries. The physics interface uses a variant of Darcy’s law and can be used for stationary and time-dependent analysis.
When this physics interface is added, these default nodes are also added to the Model Builder —
Fracture,
No Flow (the default boundary condition), and
Initial Values. Then, from the
Physics toolbar, add other nodes that implement, for example, mass sources and conditions on edges or points. You can also right-click
Fracture Flow to select physics features from the context menu.
The Label is the default physics interface name.
The Name is used primarily as a scope prefix for variables defined by the physics interface. Refer to such physics interface variables in expressions using the pattern
<name>.<variable_name>. In order to distinguish between variables belonging to different physics interfaces, the
name string must be unique. Only letters, numbers, and underscores (_) are permitted in the
Name field. The first character must be a letter.
The default Name (for the first physics interface in the model) is
ff.
Enter a Reference pressure level pref (SI unit: Pa). The default value is
1[atm].
Under Acceleration of gravity enter the value for the acceleration of gravity
g (SI unit: m/s
2). The default value is the predefined constant
g_const.
The dependent variable (field variable) is for the Pressure. The name can be changed but the names of fields and dependent variables must be unique within a model.
) and select 