A numerical characterisation of unconfined strength of weakly consolidated granular packs and its effect on fluid-driven fracture behaviour
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Published version
Author(s)
Gago, Paula
Konstantinou, Charalampos
Biscontin, Giovanna
King, Peter
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Soft or weakly consolidated sand refers to porous materials composed of particles (or grains) weakly held together to form a solid but that can be easily broken when subjected to stress. These materials do not behave as conventional brittle, linear elastic materials and the transition between these two regimes cannot usually be described using poro-elastic models. Furthermore, conventional geotechnical sampling techniques often result in the destruction of the cementation and recovery of sufficient intact core is, therefore, difficult. This paper studies a numerical model that allows us to introduce weak consolidation in granular packs. The model, based on the LIGGGHTS open source project, simply adds an attractive contribution to particles in contact. This simple model allows us to reproduce key elements of the behaviour of the stress observed in compacted sands and clay, as well as in poorly consolidated sandstones. The paper finishes by inspecting the effect of different consolidation levels in fluid-driven fracture behaviour. Numerical results are compared qualitatively against experimental results on bio-cemented sandstones.
Date Issued
2022-05-12
Date Acceptance
2022-04-05
Citation
Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering, 2022, 55, pp.4565-4575
ISSN
0723-2632
Publisher
Springer
Start Page
4565
End Page
4575
Journal / Book Title
Rock Mechanics and Rock Engineering
Volume
55
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Sponsor
BP International Limited
Identifier
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00603-022-02885-w
Grant Number
75195/ICAM39(Uoc + IC)
Subjects
Geological & Geomatics Engineering
0905 Civil Engineering
0914 Resources Engineering and Extractive Metallurgy
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2022-05-12