Articles | Volume 29, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2697-2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-29-2697-2025
Technical note
 | 
30 Jun 2025
Technical note |  | 30 Jun 2025

Technical note: Finite element formulations to map discrete fracture elements in three-dimensional groundwater models

Rob de Rooij

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Cited articles

Blessent, D., Therrien, R., and Gable, C. W.: Large-scale numerical simulation of groundwater flow and solute transport in discretely-fractured crystalline bedrock, Adv. Water Resour., 34, 1539–1552, 2011. 
Blessent, D., Therrien, R., and MacQuarrie, K.: Coupling geological and numerical models to simulate groundwater flow and contaminant transport in fractured media, Comput. Geosci., 35, 1897–1906, 2009. 
Cornaton, F., Perrochet, P., and Diersch, H.: A finite element formulation of the outlet gradient boundary condition for convective-diffusive transport problems, Int. J. Numer. Meth. Eng., 61, 2716–2732, https://doi.org/10.1002/nme.1188, 2004. 
Diersch, H., Bauer, D., Heidemann, W., and Schatzl, P.: FEFLOW-White papers vol. I, WASY GmbH Institute for water resources planning and systems research Ltd, Berlin, 133–138, 2005. 
Diersch, H.-J. G.: FEFLOW: Finite element modeling of flow, mass and heat transport in porous and fractured media, Springer Science & Business Media, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38739-5, 2013. 
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Short summary
Coordinate transformations are often used in the finite element method. Here, three existing approaches are discussed that can be applied to the same mapping problem. From a mathematical viewpoint, the approaches are quite different. It is shown that all three approaches provide the same result. Interestingly, the more mathematically challenging approaches provide an expression that is the most practical to implement in a finite element code.
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