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Investigating the Meso‐Mechanical Anisotropy and Fracture Surface Roughness of Continental Shale
Author(s) -
Huang Beixiu,
Li Lihui,
Tan Yufang,
Hu Ruilin,
Li Xiao
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of geophysical research: solid earth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.983
H-Index - 232
eISSN - 2169-9356
pISSN - 2169-9313
DOI - 10.1029/2019jb017828
Subject(s) - bedding , oil shale , geology , anisotropy , fracture (geology) , bed , ultimate tensile strength , delamination (geology) , geotechnical engineering , petrology , composite material , materials science , lithosphere , seismology , tectonics , paleontology , horticulture , biology , physics , quantum mechanics
Continental shale is abundant with unconventional oil and gas and has considerable prospect for exploitation. However, due to deposited environment differences, continental shale presents unique characteristics in terms of structure and mineralogy compared to marine shale. The mechanical property is elemental parameter for reservoir production, but relevant studies of continental shale are rarely reported. In this study, several groups of mesoscale (0.1–10 mm) uniaxial compression tests were conducted on continental shale with various bedding angles, sourced from the Yanchang Formation in the southern Ordos Basin, China. A new integrated real‐time loading‐observation‐acquisition system, specifically, a miniature tensile instrument‐light microscope (MTI‐LM) system, was utilized, which allowed us to visualize the failure process and simultaneously record the stress‐strain curves, providing snapshots for investigation of fracture initiation, propagation, and fracture surface features. The results demonstrate that as the bedding angle relative to the maximum compression direction increases, the uniaxial compressive strength ( σ c ) and the percentage of bedding‐parallel fractures ( F p ) fluctuate reversely, namely, higher σ c corresponds to lower F p . Additionally, a good consistency is revealed among the variations of σ c , failure time and fracture surface roughness with bedding angles, suggesting stronger shale having rougher fracture surfaces and longer failure time at a certain loading rate. The meso‐mechanical anisotropy of shales is supposed to have an origin in heterogeneous component and microtexture, as indicated by different bridges connecting the opposite facies of fractures. The findings help reveal the mechanism underlying mechanical anisotropy and facilitate fracability evaluation of shallow shale gas reservoir.