Elastic wave propagation in fractured media with spring-type and frictional contact deformation laws

Elastic wave propagation in fractured media is relevant to applications such as analysis of seismic waves and non-destructive characterization of materials. Understanding attenuation and scattering behavior arising from wave-fracture interaction is important for interpreting observations at both field and laboratory scales. This work presents a computational framework for elastic wave propagation in fractured media based on a mixed-dimensional discrete fracture-matrix representation. Fracture deformation is governed by four models of increasing complexity, ranging from widely used spring-based formulations to fracture contact mechanics models with friction, all incorporated within a unified computational framework. Many previous studies are often restricted to simplified wave fields, single fractures or subsets of the relevant fracture deformation mechanisms. In contrast, the proposed framework enables fully coupled simulation of elastic wave propagation with fracture deformation models that account for elastic normal deformation, frictional contact and fracture opening and closure. The elastic wave equation is discretized in space using the cell-centered finite volume method Multi-Point Stress Approximation with weak symmetry and in time using the Newmark method. The spatial discretization is locally conservative and applicable to general polyhedral grids, making it well suited for media containing fractures, material heterogeneities and anisotropy. The proposed framework is verified through numerical convergence analyses and is subsequently applied to wave propagation and fracture deformation in two- and three-dimensional media containing multiple intersecting fractures.