Fractures are present in many types of porous media, including rock formations. While the impact of the fractures on fluid flow processes has been extensively investigated, methods for rigorous poromechanical upscaling including fluid mass and momentum conservation into effective models are still limited. Considering the limitations of experimental assessment of large rock masses, this work proposes the use of a numerical approach to understand and calculate the effective poromechanical quasi-static response of a fractured porous medium. First, we detail the design and validation of a high-performance poroelastic simulator with conforming fractures. Then a series of sensitivity analyses investigates the effective response of a linear poroelastic medium with a fracture network. An unstructured mesh generator coupled to a Monte Carlo simulation engine helps explore the intrinsic uncertainties of the system, both in the continuum and fracture domains. The findings indicate that fracture networks are most impactful in scenarios of low effective stress, which is typically the case of shallow rock formations, high pore pressure, or fluid injection at low temperatures. The impact on the effective drained bulk modulus , the drained Poisson ratio and the drained Biot coefficient is strongly correlated to the fracture density, while the effective undrained Skempton and Biot Modulus are more sensitive to fluid compressibility as the fluid storage added due to fracture volume and deformation becomes dominant. Finally, the uncertainty assessment provides recommendations for geomechanical modelers attempting to capture effective poroelastic parameterization at the field scale. For example, contrary to usual practice, it is correct to assume a large-scale effective Biot coefficient near unity for highly fractured stiff rocks such as dolomite or granite.
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