Using the Landlab `FractureGridGenerator` component¶

(Greg Tucker, University of Colorado Boulder, July 2021)

Introduction¶

Landlab’ FractureGridGenerator is a small helper component that generates a grid in which are embedded a set of randomly aligned fractures. A fracture is described by a line of nodes for which the field fracture_at_node equals 1. In other words, nodes where fracture_at_node = 1 contain one or more fractures running through or near them, and nodes where fracture_at_node = 0 are devoid of fractures. The component was originally written to initialize a cellular automaton model of rock weathering along fracture zones. An example of a gridded fracture network used in this way can be found in Tucker et al. (2016) Figure 9.

Simple example with a raster grid¶

[ ]:

import copy

import matplotlib as mpl

from landlab import RasterModelGrid, imshow_grid
from landlab.components import FractureGridGenerator

[ ]:

grid = RasterModelGrid((51, 51))
fg = FractureGridGenerator(grid, frac_spacing=20)
fg.run_one_step()
cmap = copy.copy(mpl.colormaps["pink"])
imshow_grid(grid, grid.at_node["fracture_at_node"], cmap=cmap)

Example with a hex grid¶

This example also shows how you can use the optional seed parameter to get a different random pattern.

[ ]:

from landlab import HexModelGrid

[ ]:

grid = HexModelGrid((51, 51), node_layout="rect")
fg = FractureGridGenerator(grid, frac_spacing=10, seed=4)
fg.run_one_step()
cmap = copy.copy(mpl.colormaps["pink"])
imshow_grid(grid, grid.at_node["fracture_at_node"], cmap=cmap)

Vertically oriented hex grid¶

[ ]:

grid = HexModelGrid((51, 51), node_layout="rect", orientation="vertical")
fg = FractureGridGenerator(grid, frac_spacing=10, seed=3)
fg.run_one_step()
cmap = copy.copy(mpl.colormaps["pink"])
imshow_grid(grid, grid.at_node["fracture_at_node"], cmap=cmap)

References¶

Tucker, G. E., Hobley, D. E., Hutton, E., Gasparini, N. M., Istanbulluoglu, E., Adams, J. M., & Nudurupati, S. S. (2016). CellLab-CTS 2015: continuous-time stochastic cellular automaton modeling using Landlab. Geoscientific Model Development, 9(2), 823-839, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-9-823-2016.

Generated by nbsphinx from a Jupyter notebook.

Using the Landlab FractureGridGenerator component¶