We report laboratory experiments to investigate the role of gas desorption, stress level and loading rate on the mechanical behavior of methane infiltrated coal. Two suites of experiments are carried out. The first suite of experiments is conducted on coal (Lower Kittanning seam, West Virginia) at a confining stress of 2 MPa and methane pore pressures in the fracture of 1 MPa to examine the rol...

12 We report on laboratory experiments designed to investigate the effect of 13 dynamic stressing on permeability of fractured rock. Berea sandstone samples 14 were fractured in-situ under triaxial stresses of 10's of MPa, and deionized 15 water was forced through the incipient fracture under conditions of steady and 16 oscillating pore pressure. We find that dynamic stresses produced by pore 1...

A computer algorithm is implemented to construct 3D cubic pore networks that simultaneously honor nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mercury injection capillary pressure (MICP) measurements on core samples. The algorithm uses discretized pore-body size distributions from NMR and pore-throat size vs. incremental pore-volume fraction information from MICP as initial inputs. Both pore-throat rad...

Uplift and pore pressures are fundamental loading conditions that affect the strength and stability of concrete dams. Historically, these loads have been difficult to quantify and to implement in finite element analysis (FEA). Some dam design guidelines propose different techniques to apply the estimated uplift pressure for its use in FEA of concrete dams. These methodologies are, in general, q...

Expansive soils can be found in many parts of the world particularly in arid and semi-arid regions. These soilspose a significant hazard to civil engineering structures due to its high swelling and shrinkage potential. This paperpresents the results of an experimental program developed to investigate the effect of cyclic drying and wetting on theswelling potential of expansive soils with variou...

The effect of overpressure on gas hydrate and free gas distribution in marine sediments is studied using a one-dimensional numerical model that couples sedimentation, fluid flow, and gas hydrate formation. Natural gas hydrate systems are often characterized by high sedimentation rates and/or low permeability sediments, which can lead to pore pressure higher than hydrostatic (overpressure). To q...

A semi-empirical elasto-plastic constitutive model with a hyperbolic stress-strain curve was developed the goal of predicting seismic compression unsaturated sands in funicular regime soil-water retention (SWRC) during undrained cyclic shearing. Using flow rule derived from energy considerations, evolution plastic volumetric strain (seismic compression) predicted shear strains hysteretic curve....