archives@tulane.edu / Discrete fracture networks (DFNs) can be modeled with polygonal representations that are useful for geophysical modeling of nuclear waste containment and hydrofrac- turing. Flow and transport calculations are possible, but computationally expensive, limiting the feasibility for model uncertainty quantification. Graphs are used to re- duce model complexity and computation time. We present the formulation of using a graph as a reduced model for DFNs and pose the inversion problem central to this research. We present a novel alternative to Darcy’s law on graphs using the well known Brinkman formulation on the continuum. We apply the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm to optimize graphs, calibrating them to observed data through the inversion problem. We present the deficiencies in physically motivated graphs, and show how optimized graphs produce better results overall. Our solution finds lumped parameters representing the fracture properties, and is used to reduce the computational time required for particle transport calculations. Breakthrough curves are produced on our obtained solutions, which closely match the high fidelity model. We present examples of creating these reduced models for DFNs with 500 fractures to illustrate the methodology and optimization scheme used to obtain an improved result over a previous formulation. / 1 / Jaime Lopez-Merizalde