dfnWorks is a parallelized computational suite to generate three-dimensional discrete fracture networks (DFN) and simulate flow and transport. Developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory, it has been used to study flow and transport in fractured media at scales ranging from millimeters to kilometers.

dfnWorks creates high-fidelity thee-dimensional networks using dfnGen, which combines FRAM (the feature rejection algorithm for meshing) methodology to stochastically generate three-dimensional DFNs with the LaGriT meshing toolbox to create a high-quality computational mesh representation. The representation produces a conforming Delaunay triangulation suitable for high performance computing finite volume solvers in an intrinsically parallel fashion. Flow through the network is simulated with dfnFlow, which utilizes the massively parallel subsurface flow and reactive transport finite volume code PFLOTRAN. A Lagrangian approach to simulating transport through the DFN is adopted within dfnTrans to determine pathlines and solute transport through the DFN.

dfnWorks has been designed to transform how flow and transport computations are performed in fractured rock—this software overcomes the limitations of continuum approaches used today to simulate flow and transport through fractured porous rock in the subsurface. Unlike continuum methods that use effective parameters to include the influence of the fractures on flow, dfnWorks uses geologic field investigations to create a network of fractures in which the geometry and properties of individual fractures are explicitly represented as intersecting planar polygons in three dimensions.