A new approach to the modeling of the groundwater flow in fractured rock is presented in the paper. The empirical knowledge of the hyudrogeologists is summarized first. There are three types of objects important for the groundwater flow – small fractures which can be replaced by blocks of porous media, large deterministic fractures and lines of intersection of the large fractures. These objects are by their nature 3-D, 2-D and 1-D, respectively. The rest of the paper describes how to set up a numerical model representing all three types of objects. We use existing models based on the Mixed-Hybrid FEM and we connect them by equations representing the mass exchange between various types of elements. Our model uses two types of connection of the elements, the so-called compatible and incompatible types.
FEM, Fractured rock, Groundwater flow, Numerical modeling
