Coupled Stress and Permeability Behavior in Fractured Media and its Application

ABSTRACT: The coupling between stress and permeability in fractured rock media is important for many engineering problems. For instance, in the petroleum industry, the near-field fluid pressure and associated effective stress change due to oil production in fractured formations, which lead to change in fracture aperture, variation in formation permeability. For problems in mining engineering, the stress field is perturbed and subsequent redistributed after mining. The fracture aperture changes due to the stress changes control the permeability and water flow into the mined area. However, permeability is usually considered to be independent of the state of stress, which may result in erroneous prediction. This work forcuses on the analysis of coupling between permeability and stress variations. An analytical relationship coupling the permeability with stress is proposed which is used in the development of a finite element method. Applying this model, the permeability changes due to underground mining is examined.