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Title: Effects of spatial heterogeneity and material anisotropy on the fracture pattern and macroscopic effective toughness of Mancos Shale in Brazilian tests

Abstract

For assessing energy-related activities in the subsurface, it is important to investigate the impact of the spatial variability and anisotropy on the geomechanical behavior of shale. The Brazilian test, an indirect tensile-splitting method, is performed in this work, and the evolution of strain field is obtained using digital image correlation. Experimental results show the significant impact of local heterogeneity and lamination on the crack pattern characteristics. For numerical simulations, a phase field method is used to simulate the brittle fracture behavior under various Brazilian test conditions. In this study, shale is assumed to consist of two constituents including the stiff and soft layers to which the same toughness but different elastic moduli are assigned. Microstructural heterogeneity is simplified to represent mesoscale (e.g., millimeter scale) features such as layer orientation, thickness, volume fraction, and defects. The effect of these structural attributes on the onset, propagation, and coalescence of cracks is explored. The simulation results show that spatial heterogeneity and material anisotropy highly affect crack patterns and effective fracture toughness, and the elastic contrast of two constituents significantly alters the effective toughness. However, the complex crack patterns observed in the experiments cannot completely be accounted for by either an isotropic or transverselymore » isotropic effective medium approach. In conclusion, this implies that cracks developed in the layered system may coalesce in complicated ways depending on the local heterogeneity, and the interaction mechanisms between the cracks using two-constituent systems may explain the wide range of effective toughness of shale reported in the literature.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [2]
  1. Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, Columbia University, New York New York USA
  2. Geomechanics Department, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque New Mexico USA
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Sandia National Lab. (SNL-NM), Albuquerque, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES)
OSTI Identifier:
1375649
Alternate Identifier(s):
OSTI ID: 1375650; OSTI ID: 1377607
Report Number(s):
SAND-2017-9065J
Journal ID: ISSN 2169-9313
Grant/Contract Number:  
180869; SC0006883; AC04-94AL85000
Resource Type:
Published Article
Journal Name:
Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth; Journal ID: ISSN 2169-9313
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
58 GEOSCIENCES; Brazilian test; Mancos Shale; digital image correlation; effective toughness; phase field model; heterogeneity

Citation Formats

Na, SeonHong, Sun, WaiChing, Ingraham, Mathew D., and Yoon, Hongkyu. Effects of spatial heterogeneity and material anisotropy on the fracture pattern and macroscopic effective toughness of Mancos Shale in Brazilian tests. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1002/2016JB013374.
Na, SeonHong, Sun, WaiChing, Ingraham, Mathew D., & Yoon, Hongkyu. Effects of spatial heterogeneity and material anisotropy on the fracture pattern and macroscopic effective toughness of Mancos Shale in Brazilian tests. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JB013374
Na, SeonHong, Sun, WaiChing, Ingraham, Mathew D., and Yoon, Hongkyu. Sat . "Effects of spatial heterogeneity and material anisotropy on the fracture pattern and macroscopic effective toughness of Mancos Shale in Brazilian tests". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JB013374.
@article{osti_1375649,
title = {Effects of spatial heterogeneity and material anisotropy on the fracture pattern and macroscopic effective toughness of Mancos Shale in Brazilian tests},
author = {Na, SeonHong and Sun, WaiChing and Ingraham, Mathew D. and Yoon, Hongkyu},
abstractNote = {For assessing energy-related activities in the subsurface, it is important to investigate the impact of the spatial variability and anisotropy on the geomechanical behavior of shale. The Brazilian test, an indirect tensile-splitting method, is performed in this work, and the evolution of strain field is obtained using digital image correlation. Experimental results show the significant impact of local heterogeneity and lamination on the crack pattern characteristics. For numerical simulations, a phase field method is used to simulate the brittle fracture behavior under various Brazilian test conditions. In this study, shale is assumed to consist of two constituents including the stiff and soft layers to which the same toughness but different elastic moduli are assigned. Microstructural heterogeneity is simplified to represent mesoscale (e.g., millimeter scale) features such as layer orientation, thickness, volume fraction, and defects. The effect of these structural attributes on the onset, propagation, and coalescence of cracks is explored. The simulation results show that spatial heterogeneity and material anisotropy highly affect crack patterns and effective fracture toughness, and the elastic contrast of two constituents significantly alters the effective toughness. However, the complex crack patterns observed in the experiments cannot completely be accounted for by either an isotropic or transversely isotropic effective medium approach. In conclusion, this implies that cracks developed in the layered system may coalesce in complicated ways depending on the local heterogeneity, and the interaction mechanisms between the cracks using two-constituent systems may explain the wide range of effective toughness of shale reported in the literature.},
doi = {10.1002/2016JB013374},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research. Solid Earth},
number = ,
volume = ,
place = {United States},
year = {2017},
month = {8}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1002/2016JB013374

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 10 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: (a) Brazilian test set-up for Mancos Shale. Note that a single thickness of masking tape is wrapped to reduce the stress concentration at the loading point. (b) Shale sample painted with black spray and speckled with white spray to perform digital image correlation and (c) unpainted side ofmore » the sample.« less

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