Modelling the water injection induced fault slip and its application to in-situ stress estimation
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Wenjie Shiu; Jonny Rutqvist; Yves Guglielmi; Bastian Graupner
- Source
- Subject
- Water injection (oil production)
Numerical analysis
0211 other engineering and technologies
Fault reactivation
Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy
02 engineering and technology
Slip (materials science)
Mechanics
Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology
Civil Engineering
Discrete element method
In-situ stress estimation
Shear (geology)
Shear stress
Hydro-mechanical coupling
Mining & Metallurgy
Fault slip
Normal
human activities
Geology
021102 mining & metallurgy
021101 geological & geomatics engineering
- Language
Fault reactivation due to water injection is assessed within the scope of nuclear waste disposal design. A model using the distinct element method is applied to reproduce the fault reactivation during an experiment carried out at the Mont Terri Underground Research Laboratory in Switzerland. A conceptual model is first presented to understand the hydro-mechanical coupling behavior between water pressure and rock joint movement. The model simulations show that the dominant factors on fault slip are shear stress and frictional resistance. Moreover, modeling shows that fault reversible opening in the normal direction occurs first at a lower pressure, whereas shear displacement as a result of shear slip is produced once a sufficiently high pressure is reached. We demonstrate that a coupled numerical analysis of the rock displacement trend and fluid pressure measured at the injection point allow an in-situ estimation of the principal stresses.