ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT: Many long-lived (103 - 106 years) natural cantilevers in five limestone caves are characterized by maximum tensile stress of 1 MPa. This is interpreted as the stress necessary to cause subcritical propagation of cracks having a wide variety of lengths. We propose that in these rocks, crack propagation velocity v = c (K1/KQ)n, where c and n are constants and KQ (Ingraffea and Schmidt 1978) is mode I critical stress intensity, which varies with crack length for short cracks.

Keywords:
Upstream Oil & Gas, crack length, MPa, hydraulic fracturing, Thickness, deflection, Reservoir Characterization, strength, initial crack length, subcritical crack propagation
Subjects:
Hydraulic Fracturing, Reservoir Characterization
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1994. A.A. Balkema - Permission to Distribute - American Rock Mechanics Association
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