This a more logical way to think about adding tortuosity into the simulations. Additionally, tracing the fracture's lower surface in the image only produces a different result than tracking the mid-surface when there are significant bifurcations. In the presence of significant bifurcations that can alter flow (i.e. not a dead end splay) the simple aperture map representation is automatically a poor representation anyways.
Using a (mean, geometric, or harmonic) averaged mid-surface location also allows direct implementation of the tortuosity correction presented in Brush, Thompson 2003 in addition to the Stokes Tapered Plate correction already in place. Lastly, an average is less sensitive to stray pixels or the aforementioned splay fractures than explicitly saving the lowest voxel.
This a more logical way to think about adding tortuosity into the simulations. Additionally, tracing the fracture's lower surface in the image only produces a different result than tracking the mid-surface when there are significant bifurcations. In the presence of significant bifurcations that can alter flow (i.e. not a dead end splay) the simple aperture map representation is automatically a poor representation anyways.
Using a (mean, geometric, or harmonic) averaged mid-surface location also allows direct implementation of the tortuosity correction presented in Brush, Thompson 2003 in addition to the Stokes Tapered Plate correction already in place. Lastly, an average is less sensitive to stray pixels or the aforementioned splay fractures than explicitly saving the lowest voxel.