Experimental study of the hydro-mechanical behavior of rock joints using a parallel-plate model containing contact areas and artificial fractures

Li, Bo; Jiang, Yujing; Koyama, Tomofumi; Jing, Lanru; Tanabashi, Yoshihiko

doi:10.1016/j.ijrmms.2007.06.004

Cited by 195 publications

(119 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In order to further verify the validity of Eq. (15), the apertures and permeability in previous shear-flow tests of Li et al, 8 Xiong et al 29 and Olsson and Barton 11 were collected. The predicted permeability is consistent with the previously tested results, in which the permeability variation is within one order of magnitude.…”

Section: Evolutions Of Fracture Aperturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…4 Natural fractures are observed to have a three-dimensional (3D) distribution of local apertures formed by two rough walls that are partially contacted. [5][6][7][8][9] Amongst the various parameters affecting the flow through a fracture, the fracture morphology is a critical factor that can change fracture permeability significantly. [10][11][12][13][14][15] Field-and laboratory-scale measurements are effective methods to analyze and quantify the flow property in real rock fractures.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[32][33][34] When the fracture suffers a shear and/or normal stress, the permeability increases due to the shear stressinduced dilations and/or decreases due to the normal stress-induced closures. 8,35,36 In order to identify the permeability of fracture under different hydrogeological conditions, more cases than those in the laboratory shear-flow tests are needed. Besides, although numerous efforts have been devoted to evaluating hydraulic behavior of a natural rough fracture, one particular difficulty still existed is to directly predict permeability during shear because of the complexity of fracture geometries and boundary stress conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Predictive Model of Permeability for Fractal-Based Rough Rock Fractures During Shear

et al. 2017

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This study investigates the roles of fracture roughness, normal stress and shear displacement on the fluid flow characteristics through three-dimensional (3D) self-affine fractal rock fractures, Corresponding author. whose surfaces are generated using the modified successive random additions (SRA) algorithm. A series of numerical shear-flow tests under different normal stresses were conducted on rough rock fractures to calculate the evolutions of fracture aperture and permeability. The results show that the rough surfaces of fractal-based fractures can be described using the scaling parameter Hurst exponent (H), in which H = 3 − D f , where D f is the fractal dimension of 3D single fractures. The joint roughness coefficient (JRC) distribution of fracture profiles follows a Gauss function with a negative linear relationship between H and average JRC. The frequency curves of aperture distributions change from sharp to flat with increasing shear displacement, indicating a more anisotropic and heterogeneous flow pattern. Both the mean aperture and permeability of fracture increase with the increment of surface roughness and decrement of normal stress. At the beginning of shear, the permeability increases remarkably and then gradually becomes steady. A predictive model of permeability using the mean mechanical aperture is proposed and the validity is verified by comparisons with the experimental results reported in literature. The proposed model provides a simple method to approximate permeability of fractal-based rough rock fractures during shear using fracture aperture distribution that can be easily obtained from digitized fracture surface information. 1750051-1

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Section: Evolutions Of Fracture Aperturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Predictive Model of Permeability for Fractal-Based Rough Rock Fractures During Shear

et al. 2017

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“…The hydraulic aperture of single fractures has been extensively studied during the previous studies, which is significantly related with fracture surface roughness (Olsson and Barton, 2001), Reynolds number (Zimmerman and Main, 2004;Xiong et al, 2011), contact (Zimmerman and Bodvarsson, 1996;Li et al, 2008), shear process (Javadi et al, 2014), hydraulic gradient (Guha Roy and Singh, 2015), etc. Besides, in-site observations show that fracture aperture is also correlated with fracture length, following power law functions with the exponent in the range of 0.5-2.0 (Fossen and Hesthammer, 1997).…”

Section: Aperture Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geometrical, fractal and hydraulic properties of fractured reservoirs: A mini-review

Wei

Xia

2017

Adv. Geo-Energ. Res.

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Fractures and fracture networks play an important role in fluid flow and transport properties of oil and gas reservoirs. Accurate estimation of geometrical characteristics of fracture networks and their hydraulic properties are two key research directions in the fields of fluids flow in fractured porous media. Recent works focusing on the geometrical, fractal and hydraulic properties of fractured reservoirs are reviewed and summarized in this mini-review. The effects of several important parameters that significantly influences hydraulic properties are specifically discussed and analyzed, including fracture length distribution, aperture distribution, boundary stress and anisotropy. The methods for predicting fractal dimension of fractures and models for fracture networks and fractured porous media based on fractal-based approaches are addressed. Some comments and suggestions are also given on the future research directions and fractal fracture networks as well as fractured porous media.

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“…The void space between opposing surfaces can vary due to normal stress-induced closures or opening [18,24,26] or shear stressinduced dilations [27][28][29]. Hence, the fluid flow behavior and the transmissivity of rock fracture networks are stressdependent, which has so far rarely been investigated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental Study on Stress-Dependent Nonlinear Flow Behavior and Normalized Transmissivity of Real Rock Fracture Networks

et al. 2018

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The mechanism and quantitative descriptions of nonlinear fluid flow through rock fractures are difficult issues of high concern in underground engineering fields. In order to study the effects of fracture geometry and loading conditions on nonlinear flow properties and normalized transmissivity through fracture networks, stress-dependent fluid flow tests were conducted on real rock fracture networks with different number of intersections (1, 4, 7, and 12) and subjected to various applied boundary loads (7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 kN). For all cases, the inlet hydraulic pressures ranged from 0 to 0.6 MPa. The test results show that Forchheimer's law provides an excellent description of the nonlinear fluid flow in fracture networks. The linear coefficient and nonlinear coefficient in Forchheimer's law = + 2 generally decrease with the number of intersections but increase with the boundary load. The relationships between and can be well fitted with a power function. A nonlinear effect factor = 2 /( + 2 ) was used to quantitatively characterize the nonlinear behaviors of fluid flow through fracture networks. By defining a critical value of = 10%, the critical hydraulic gradient was calculated. The critical hydraulic gradient decreases with the number of intersections due to richer flowing paths but increases with the boundary load due to fracture closure. The transmissivity of fracture networks decreases with the hydraulic gradient, and the variation process can be estimated using an exponential function. A mathematical expression / 0 = 1 − exp(− −0.45 ) for decreased normalized transmissivity / 0 against the hydraulic gradient was established. When the hydraulic gradient is small, / 0 holds a constant value of 1.0. With increasing hydraulic gradient, the reduction rate of / 0 first increases and then decreases. The equivalent permeability of fracture networks decreases with the applied boundary load, and permeability changes at low load levels are more sensitive.

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Experimental study of the hydro-mechanical behavior of rock joints using a parallel-plate model containing contact areas and artificial fractures

Abstract: ABSTRACT:In recent years, geological disposal of radioactive wastes is considered to be the most promising option, which requires the understanding of the coupled mechanical, hydraulic and thermal properties of the host rock masses and rock fractures.

Cited by 195 publications

References 23 publications

A Predictive Model of Permeability for Fractal-Based Rough Rock Fractures During Shear

A Predictive Model of Permeability for Fractal-Based Rough Rock Fractures During Shear

Geometrical, fractal and hydraulic properties of fractured reservoirs: A mini-review

Experimental Study on Stress-Dependent Nonlinear Flow Behavior and Normalized Transmissivity of Real Rock Fracture Networks

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