Underground nuclear weapon testing produces radionuclide gases which may seep to the surface. Barometric pumping of gas through explosion-fractured rock is investigated using a new sequentially-coupled hydrodynamic rock damage/gas transport model. Fracture networks are produced for two rock types (granite and tuff) and three depths of burial. The fracture networks are integrated into a flow and...

Thermal conductive heating (TCH) is an innovative remediation technology developed for aggressive in-situ non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) source zone treatment. Electrical heater wells are used to conductively transfer heat into the subsurface, thereby elevating temperatures and boiling both ground water and NAPLs. The design of a TCH remediation system needs to consider the cooling effect of i...

We present a contribution on the risk of hydraulic fracturing in CO2 geological storage using an analytical model of hydraulic fracturing in weak formations. The work is based on a MohrCoulomb dislocation model that is extended to account for material with fracture toughness. The complete slip process that is distributed around the crack tip is replaced by superdislocations that are placed in t...

It is vital for the study of fracturing parameters optimal design and fluids rate forecast to calculate fracture propagation parameters accurately. In order to calculate fracture propagation accurately, in this paper, the model for calculating the value of energy release when the rock body collapses was established basing on catastrophe theory, considering that the collapse of fracturing rock b...

Modeling of crack propagation by a finite element method under mixed mode conditions is of prime importance in the fracture mechanics. This article describes an application of finite element method to the analysis of mixed mode crack growth in linear elastic fracture mechanics. Crack - growth process is simulated by an incremental crack-extension analysis based on the maximum principal stress c...

Interlaminar fracture mechanics has proven useful for characterizing the onset of delaminations in composites and has been used with limited success primarily to investigate onset in fracture toughness specimens and laboratory size coupon type specimens. Future acceptance of the methodology by industry and certification authorities however, requires the successful demonstration of the methodolo...

Materials fail by the nucleation and propagation of a crack, the critical condition of which is quantitatively described by fracture mechanics that uses an intensity of singular stress field characteristically formed near the crack-tip. However, the continuum assumption basing fracture mechanics obscures the prediction of failure of materials at the nanoscale due to discreteness of atoms. Here,...

Larsson, M. 2012. Heterogeneity-Induced Channelling, Flow-Wetted Surface, and Modelling of Transport in Fractured Rock. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis. Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology 971. 76 pp. Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-554-8468-2. Heterogeneities in fractured rock are found at all scales; from the scale of individual fractures, t...