Imperial College London
Alternate

DrRonnyPini

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering

Reader in Chemical Engineering
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7518r.pini Website

 
 
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Location

 

415ACE ExtensionSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Wenning:2019:10.1029/2019jb017301,
author = {Wenning, QC and Madonna, C and Kurotori, T and Pini, R},
doi = {10.1029/2019jb017301},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth},
pages = {7320--7340},
title = {Spatial mapping of fracture aperture changes with shear displacement using X-ray computerized tomography},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019jb017301},
volume = {124},
year = {2019}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The shearing of fractures can be a significant source of permeability change by altering the distribution of void space within the fracture itself. Common methods to estimate the effects of shearing on properties, such as aperture, roughness, and connectivity are incapable of providing these observations insitu. Laboratory protocols are needed that enable measurements of the spatial structure of the fracture aperture field in the medium, noninvasively. Here, we investigate changes in roughwalled Brazilianinduced tensile fracture aperture distribution with progressive shear displacement in Westerly granite and Carrara marble using a novel Xray transparent coreholder. The socalled calibrationfree missing attenuation method is applied to reconstruct highlyresolved (submillimeter) fracture aperture maps as a function of displacement (0 to 5.75 mm) in induced fractures. We observe that shearing increases the coreaveraged fracture aperture and significantly broadens the distribution of local values, mostly towards higher apertures. These effects are particularly strong in Westerly granite and may be the result of the higher initial roughness of its fracture surfaces. Also, while the correlation length of the aperture field increases in both parallel and perpendicular directions, significant anisotropy is developed in both samples with the progression of shearing. The results on Westerly granite provide a direct indication that fracture aperture remains largely unaffected until 1~mm of displacement is achieved, which is important when estimating permeability enhancement due to natural and induced shear displacement in faults.
AU  - Wenning,QC
AU  - Madonna,C
AU  - Kurotori,T
AU  - Pini,R
DO  - 10.1029/2019jb017301
EP  - 7340
PY  - 2019///
SN  - 2169-9313
SP  - 7320
TI  - Spatial mapping of fracture aperture changes with shear displacement using X-ray computerized tomography
T2  - Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2019jb017301
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/70975
VL  - 124
ER  -
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