A study of changes in deep fractured rock permeability due to coupled hydro-mechanical effects

Figueiredo, Bruno; Tsang, Chin-Fu; Rutqvist, Jonny; Niemi, Auli

doi:10.1016/j.ijrmms.2015.08.011

A study of changes in deep fractured rock permeability due to coupled hydro-mechanical effects

Journal Article · Sun Sep 27 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmms.2015.08.011· OSTI ID:1501366

Figueiredo, Bruno ^[1]; Tsang, Chin-Fu ^[2]; Rutqvist, Jonny ^[3]; Niemi, Auli ^[1]

Uppsala Univ. (Sweden)
Uppsala Univ. (Sweden); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

This paper presents a numerical study of the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a fractured rock domain at 1000. m depth below the land surface as a function of different levels of fluid pore pressure. A 2D fractured rock domain is adopted based on data obtained from outcrop mapping, displaying multiple fracture sets, fracture intersections, dead-end and curved fractures. A continuum based numerical model is used to evaluate the effects of compressive boundary stresses, cracking by tension failure in the intact rock and fractures and shear displacement along fractures on its equivalent permeability. Two in situ stress boundary conditions are considered: an isotropic case SR1 with the two horizontal boundary compressive stresses having the same magnitude, and an anisotropic case SR2 with the ratio between these compressive stress components set to be 2. In the SR2 case, changes in the local stress and stress ratio distributions due to different fluid pore pressure levels are anisotropic and more significant than in the SR1 case, because of tension failures in the intact rock forming bridges between fractures. These failure regions opened new flow connections between fractures and thereby caused important anisotropic changes in the flow paths, and significant decrease in local gradients of fluid pore pressure. The equivalent permeability increases sharply when the fluid pore pressure is approximately 90% of the magnitude of the minimum stress at the boundaries of the fractured rock domain. Results show that the equivalent permeability of the fractured rock domain is most sensitive to the fractures normal stiffness, the permeability of the tension failure regions and the power-law exponent for permeability change.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1501366

Alternate ID(s):: OSTI ID: 1337409

Journal Information:: International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences, Journal Name: International Journal of Rock Mechanics and Mining Sciences Journal Issue: C Vol. 79; ISSN 1365-1609

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Experiments and Simulations of Fully Hydro-Mechanically Coupled Response of Rough Fractures Exposed to High-Pressure Fluid Injection Vogler, D.; Settgast, R. R.; Annavarapu, C. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 123, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1002/2017jb015057	journal	February 2018
Simulation of hydro-mechanically coupled processes in rough rock fractures using an immersed boundary method and variational transfer operators von Planta, Cyrill; Vogler, Daniel; Chen, Xiaoqing Computational Geosciences, Vol. 23, Issue 5 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10596-019-09873-0	journal	September 2019
Permeability of Particle Soils Under Soil Pressure Sun, Jichao Transport in Porous Media, Vol. 123, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-018-1038-x	journal	March 2018
Experimental investigation on the stress sensitivity of permeability in naturally fractured shale Yang, Diansen; Wang, Wei; Li, Kang Environmental Earth Sciences, Vol. 78, Issue 2 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-019-8045-2	journal	January 2019
Stress‐Induced Anomalous Transport in Natural Fracture Networks Kang, Peter K.; Lei, Qinghua; Dentz, Marco Water Resources Research https://doi.org/10.1029/2019wr024944	journal	May 2019
Multiphysics Coupling Model of Rock Mass considering Damage and Disturbance and Its Application Wang, Wei; Luo, Zhouquan; Qin, Yaguang Advances in Civil Engineering, Vol. 2018 https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/3067120	journal	September 2018
Modeling the Effect of Intersected Fractures on Oil Production Rate of Fractured Reservoirs by Embedded Fracture Continuum Approach Dang, Hong-Lam Modelling and Simulation in Engineering, Vol. 2019 https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4034860	journal	July 2019
Effective Elastic and Hydraulic Properties of Fractured Rock Masses with High Contrast of Permeability: Numerical Calculation by an Embedded Fracture Continuum Approach Dang, Hong-Lam; Do, Duc Phi; Hoxha, Dashnor Advances in Civil Engineering, Vol. 2019 https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/7560724	journal	February 2019
Stress‐Induced Anomalous Transport in Natural Fracture Networks Kang, Peter K.; Lei, Qinghua; Dentz, Marco ETH Zurich https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000344137	text	January 2019

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