Opening versus shearing of a fluid-driven fault reactivation
Feng Xiao
A B , Saeed Salimzadeh B * and Qian-Bing Zhang A
A
B
Feng Xiao is a PhD candidate at Monash University and acting as a postgraduate student at CSIRO, Australia. He obtained a dual BE honours degree in civil engineering from Central South University and Monash University in 2019. He has 2 years of industry experience. He was also employed by Monash University as research assistant and teaching associate in 2022. |
Dr. Saeed Salimzadeh obtained his PhD in Geomechanics at University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) in 2014. He has international research experience through working with the rock mechanics group of Professor Zimmerman at Imperial College London, and Danish Hydrocarbon Research and Technology Centre (DHRTC), Denmark. Currently, Saeed is a Senior Research Scientist in the Hydraulic Fracturing team at CSIRO Energy, Clayton, Australia. Saeed is an expert in reservoir geomechanics and hydraulic fracturing. His work includes numerical modelling, code development, laboratory experiments, ground surface monitoring and inverse analysis. He has developed the hydraulic fracturing simulator module CSMP-HF. Saeed has supervised many Master and PhD students. |
Dr. Qian-Bing Zhang is a Senior Lecturer in Geomechanics & Tunnelling Engineering and an Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Fellow. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng, MIEAust) in the areas of Civil Engineering and Geotechnical Engineering. He received his PhD from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), and prior to joining Monash in 2015, he was a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL and University of Cambridge. He has been the Associate Editor and then the Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier Journal Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology (JCR-Q1, Impact Factor = 5.915) since 2016. He is a Committee Member of Standards Australia and ISO Standards (ISO/TC 268 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Utility Tunnels and Digital Twin). |
Abstract
Geological injection of fluids plays a key role in addressing societal challenges such as renewable energy transition and climate crisis mitigation. However, frequent injection activities would disturb the stability of surrounding fault zones and furtherly induce seismicity. When fluid enters a fault, the competition among pressure front and slip front can play a role on the fault’s seismic behaviour. Fault’s stiffness as well as the rock’s Poisson’s ratio affects the shape of the slip and pressure front. In this study, the fault’s seismic behaviour has been extensively study through numerical modelling. The aim is to investigate the impact of deformable aperture and rock matrix’s Poisson’s ratio on the opening rupture and shear rupture of a pre-existing critically stressed fault. The parametric study shows that, with this initial stress state, the opening rupture grows slower than the shearing rupture, and the ratio between the front length is approximately 70%. A slip-weakening feature could boost this difference. Moreover, the variation between the front length along the y-direction and dip-direction of the fault increases with the increase of rock matrix’s Poisson’s ratio.
Keywords: contact model, critically stressed faults, finite element modelling, injection induced fault reactivation, slip-weakening friction.
Feng Xiao is a PhD candidate at Monash University and acting as a postgraduate student at CSIRO, Australia. He obtained a dual BE honours degree in civil engineering from Central South University and Monash University in 2019. He has 2 years of industry experience. He was also employed by Monash University as research assistant and teaching associate in 2022. |
Dr. Saeed Salimzadeh obtained his PhD in Geomechanics at University of New South Wales (UNSW Sydney) in 2014. He has international research experience through working with the rock mechanics group of Professor Zimmerman at Imperial College London, and Danish Hydrocarbon Research and Technology Centre (DHRTC), Denmark. Currently, Saeed is a Senior Research Scientist in the Hydraulic Fracturing team at CSIRO Energy, Clayton, Australia. Saeed is an expert in reservoir geomechanics and hydraulic fracturing. His work includes numerical modelling, code development, laboratory experiments, ground surface monitoring and inverse analysis. He has developed the hydraulic fracturing simulator module CSMP-HF. Saeed has supervised many Master and PhD students. |
Dr. Qian-Bing Zhang is a Senior Lecturer in Geomechanics & Tunnelling Engineering and an Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Fellow. He is a Chartered Professional Engineer (CPEng, MIEAust) in the areas of Civil Engineering and Geotechnical Engineering. He received his PhD from Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), and prior to joining Monash in 2015, he was a postdoctoral researcher at EPFL and University of Cambridge. He has been the Associate Editor and then the Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier Journal Tunnelling and Underground Space Technology (JCR-Q1, Impact Factor = 5.915) since 2016. He is a Committee Member of Standards Australia and ISO Standards (ISO/TC 268 Sustainable Cities and Communities, and Utility Tunnels and Digital Twin). |
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