Title:
Mechanics of Complex Hydraulic Fractures in the Earth's Crust

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dc.contributor.advisor Germanovich, Leonid N.
dc.contributor.author Sim, Youngjong en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Lowell, Robert P.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Mayne, Paul W.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Puzrin, Alexander M.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Rix, Glenn J.
dc.contributor.committeeMember Van Dyke, Peter
dc.contributor.committeeMember Xu, Wenyue
dc.contributor.department Civil and Environmental Engineering en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2005-03-01T19:25:21Z
dc.date.available 2005-03-01T19:25:21Z
dc.date.issued 2004-08-24 en_US
dc.description.abstract Hydraulic fracturing is an important and abundant process in both industrial applications and natural environments. The current work is the first systematic quantitative study of the effect of interaction in and between complex hydraulic fractures at different spatial scales. A mathematical model, based on the boundary collocation method, has been developed. The model has been employed for a typical field case, a highly segmented vein. This vein is well-mapped, and therefore, represents a well constrained example. The computed apertures are compared to the measured apertures. By using the simplest constitutive model, based on an ideal elastic material, and including the effect of interaction between the segments, it was possible to obtain an excellent match at all considered scales. It was also shown that the concept of effective fracture, as currently accepted in the literature, is not always applicable and may lead to unbounded inaccuracy. Unfortunately, in most cases, very little (if any) directly measured data on fracture and material properties is available. An important example of such a weakly constrained case, involving hydraulic fracturing, is diking beneath the seafloor at mid-oceanic ridges. In this study, it is shown that the commonly accepted scenario of a dike propagating from the center of the pressurized magma chamber to the ocean floor is not consistent with conventional fracture mechanics due to the fact that the chamber has the shape of a thin lens. Even at such a large scale (i.e., a kilometer or more), the mechanical principles of elastic interaction appear to be applicable. Since diking is likely to generate a region of high permeability near its margin, in addition to heat, the ongoing hydrothermal activity becomes localized. Our modeling suggests the probable positions of the propagating dikes. Consequently, comparing the observed locations of hydrothermal sites with respect to that of the magma chamber could be useful for constraining the mechanisms of magma lens evolution. en_US
dc.description.degree Ph.D. en_US
dc.format.extent 7143021 bytes
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/4801
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Mechanical interaction en_US
dc.subject Hydraulic fractures
dc.subject Boundary collocation method
dc.subject Dike propagation
dc.subject Magma lens
dc.subject Magma replenishment
dc.subject.lcsh Hydraulic fracturing en_US
dc.title Mechanics of Complex Hydraulic Fractures in the Earth's Crust en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.corporatename School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 88639fad-d3ae-4867-9e7a-7c9e6d2ecc7c
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
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