DFN, why, how and what for, concepts, theories and issues

New conference paper: Davy, P., Darcel, C., Le Goc, R., Munier, R., Selroos, J.O. and Mas Ivars, D. (2018) DFN, why, how and what for, concepts, theories and issues. ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association, DFNE 18–310.

This paper discusses some fundamental issues about DFN – Discrete Fracture Network, namely (i) the upscaling of small-scale measurements to site-scale relationships, (ii) intrinsic variability versus geological determinism, (iii) the way to incorporate a priori knowledge, (iv) the transformation of a statistical description into a medium model, (v) the critical characteristics (length scales, scaling laws or physical properties) of fractures for a given DFN application.