Simulation of anastomotic karst networks.

@inproceedings{BarthelemyGM2013,
 abstract = { The heterogeneity of karsts strongly influences their mechanical and flow behaviour, but they usually cannot be thoroughly investigated. Stochastic simulations offer a solution to assess their structure. This paper introduces a method to simulate anastomotic karst networks, characterised by the presence of cycles. The volume under study is partitioned into two complementary sets, the impermeable matrix and the conduits. From this simplification arises an equivalence relation: simulating a conduit loop amounts to simulate a matrix island. A basic boolean model is thus used to randomly implant islands in the volume of interest. The karst network itself is obtained after the computation of the skeleton of the non-matrix set, using a thinning algorithm focused on connectivity preservation. Still at a preliminary stage, this work shows the potentiality of such a method to simulate 3D linear geological objects that require a certain connectivity: karstic networks, but also mineralized veins or channels. },
 author = { Barthélémy, Clément AND Collon, Pauline },
 booktitle = { Proc. 33rd Gocad Meeting, Nancy },
 title = { Simulation of anastomotic karst networks. },
 year = { 2013 }
}