A new approach for numerically solving flow in Discrete Fracture Networks (DFN) is
developed in this work by means of the Virtual Element Method (VEM). Taking advantage of
the features of the VEM, we obtain global conformity of all fracture meshes while preserving
a fracture-independent meshing process. This new approach is based on a generalization of
globally conforming Finite Elements for polygonal meshes that avoids complications arising
from the meshing process. The approach is robust enough to treat many DFNs with a large …