Effect of fracture-skin on virus transport in fractured porous media

A numerical model is developed for describing the transport of virus in a fracture-matrix coupled system with fracture-skin.An advective dispersive virus transport equation,including firstorder sorption and inactivation constant is used for simulating the movement of viruses.Implicit finite-difference numerical technique is used to solve the coupled non-linear governing equations for the triple continuum model consisting of fracture,fracture-skin and the rock-matrix.A varying grid is adopted at the fracture and fracture-skin interface to capture the mass transfer.Sensitivity analysis was performed to investigate the effect of various properties of the fracture-skin as well as viruses on the virus concentration in the fractured formation with fracture-skin.Simulation results suggest that the virus concentration in the fracture decreases with increment in the fracture-skin porosity,fracture-skin diffusion coefficient,mass transfer coefficient,inactivation constant and sorption distribution coefficient, and with reduction in the fracture aperture.