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Article history:
Received 17 January 2015
Received in revised form
16 May 2015
Accepted 20 May 2015
Available online 16 June 2015
Estimating in-situ stress with hydraulic borehole fracturing involves tensile strength of rock. Several
strength criteria with three parameters result in tensile strengths with great differences, although they
may describe the relation between strength of rock and conning pressure with low mists. The
exponential criterion provides acceptable magnitudes of tensile strengths for granites and over-estimates
that for other rocks, but the criterion with tension cut-off is applicable to all rocks. The breakdown
pressure will be lower than the shut-in pressure during hydraulic borehole fracturing, when the
maximum horizontal principal stress is 2 times larger than the minor one; and it is not the peak value in
the rst cycle, but the point where the slope of pressure-time curve begins to decline.
2015 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Strength criteria
Tensile strength
Exponential criterion
Hydraulic fracturing
1. Introduction
Numerous tests have been carried out to determine the
strengths of rocks under conning pressure (CP), as rocks in-situ
are usually under compression state. However, tension usually
appears in the vicinity of excavation and borehole, and the tensile
strength of each rock is much lower than the compressive strength.
The direct tension test is difcult to perform for rock (You et al.,
2006). In other hand, the Brazilian splitting test with rock disc is
easy to carry out in laboratory and provides a reasonable estimation
for the uniaxial tensile strength (UTS), although there are many
issues argued all along (Fairhurst, 1964; Hudson et al., 1972; Emov,
2009; Yu et al., 2009; You et al., 2011).
Many strength criteria have been proposed to describe the state
of stresses in rock at failure, as reviewed in Yu (2002) and You
(2011). Clearly, an ideal strength criterion needs to closely t test
data with acceptable accuracy over the stress state expected in
practice. Therefore, the tensile strength predicted by a strength
criterion is usually used in evaluating the criterion (Ghazvinian
et al., 2008; Bineshian et al., 2012). Tensile strengths predicted by
both the Coulomb criterion and the Grifth criterion are much
higher than the measured magnitudes of almost all rocks, although
the two criteria have clear physical backgrounds (Jaeger et al.,
2007).
sS
s
1m 3
sC
sC
(1)
sS s3
s
1m 3
sC
sC
n
(2)
sS
s3 sC
(3)
sS
s
1m 3
sC
sC
n
(4)
The two criteria, Eqs. (2) and (4), are not applicable to negative
s3 for power number n is less than 1, and are certainly beyond the
consideration for compressive-tensile strength.
The Sheorey criterion (Sheorey et al., 1989) normalized with UCS
is given in the following form:
sS
sC
s
1m 3
sC
n
(5)
sS s3
sC
s n
1m 3
sC
(6)
sS s3 QN QN Q0 f x
f x 1=1 x
Table 1
Test data of conventional triaxial compression of nine rocks.
Rock type
Westerly granite
(8)
f x exp x
The fractional form
(10)
(7)
K0 1s3
x
QN Q0
435
(9)
Bonnet granite
Tyndall limestone
Indiana limestone
Carrara marble
Georgia marble
Pottsville
sandstone
Zhaogu sandstone
Maha Sarakham
halite
Number of test
data
CP
(MPa)
UCS
(MPa)
Reference
100
201
13
9
11
6
10
10
40
40
69
162
69
62
226
52
45
137
30.6
62
10
9
45
28
132.4
23
You (2010a)
Sriapai (2010)
436
Measured
UTS (MPa)
Westerly
12.5
granite
Bonnet
13
granite
Tyndall
4
limestone
Indiana
2.5
limestone
Carrara
7.8
marble
Georgia
4.5
marble
Pottsville
3
sandstone
Zhaogu
7.2
sandstone
Maha
Sarakham
halite
7.9
6.9
14.5
14.1
5.8
5.5
12.2
11
3.5
2.3
4.3
3.1
9.3
5.9
12.9
30.4
26.9
1.1
1.1
4.6
3.6
1.9
1.4
5.4
4.6
2.9
2.1
7.6
0.8
0.7
2.5
2.1
16
Fig. 1. Fitting solutions using the exponential criterion and the generalized HeB criterion for Maha Sarakham halite.
Table 3
Ratios of UCS to UTS predicted by four strength criteria.
Criterion
Sheorey
Generalized HeB
Exponential
Fractional
Fig. 2. Fitting solutions using the fractional criterion for Maha Sarakham halite. The
thin line is for test data to the exclusion of datum A.
Maximum
Average
8.6
10.6
4.5
5.1
45.7
63
18.5
20.5
25.9
31.8
10
11.7
rocks with Brazilian test are also presented. The tensile strengths of
Westerly granite and Carrara marble are cited from Cai (2010) and
Ramsey and Chester (2004), respectively.
The Sheorey criterion and the generalized HeB criterion predict
reasonable tensile strengths only for Tyndall limestone and Indiana
limestone, respectively. Except for a few rocks, the tensile strengths
predicted by the two criteria are lower than the measured magnitudes. The ratios of UCS to UTS predicted by the generalized HeB
criterion are 10.6e63 with an average of 31.8 as presented in
Table 3, which is much higher than the practical value.
Both Raai (2011) and Bineshian et al. (2012) extended envelopes of the fractional criterion to tension range. The later argued
that the criterion described tensile strengths well, but only test
results of coal were presented. As listed in Table 2, however, the
fractional criterion presents reasonable UTS values only for Westerly granite and Zhaogu sandstone.
The exponential criterion provides reasonable UTS for four
rocks: Bonnet granite, Westerly granite, Zhaogu sandstone, and
Georgia marble. The tensile strength predicted by the exponential
criterion is 6% lower than the measured magnitude for Bonnet
granite, and higher than that of the other rocks, as presented in
Table 2. It may be concluded that the exponential criterion tends to
overestimate tensile strengths for rocks.
4. Strength criterion for rocks under compressive-tensile
stresses
The four criteria have nearly the same average magnitudes of
mean mist for nine rocks. However, UTSs predicted by the four
criteria have great difference, as presented in Table 2. Clearly, the
magnitude T of UTS is an independent parameter for rock to be
437
s1 Q0 K0 s3
(11)
where
K 1s3
<< 1
x 0
QN Q0
(12)
sT Q0 s1 =K0
(13)
Fig. 3. Envelopes of four criteria for rock under compressive-tensile stresses. The
criteria are optimized from fracture strengths of Bonnet granite.
438
Table 5
In-situ stresses measured with overcoring test.
Location
Ps sh
(14)
Depth
(m)
sh
sH
sH 2sh
(MPa)
(MPa)
(MPa)
(MPa)
3sh sH
(MPa)
8.28
9.37
10.73
11.51
18.5
7.6
13.1
1.2
3
25.9
6.84
7.26
10.18
8.64
11.3
8.1
6.2
5
18
65.9
15.58
17.51
25.77
25.55
37.7
30.8
26.3
2.6
12
14.1
1.9
2.99
5.41
8.27
15.1
14.6
13.9
1.4
9
11.8
4.94
4.27
4.77
0.37
3.8
6.5
7.7
Ertan
Pr 3sh sH
(15)
Pb 3sh sH T
(16)
which means that the major principal stress s1 does not inuence
the tensile failure of rock. However, it should involve strength criterion in compression-tension region. Based on the elastic fracture
mechanics, the far-eld tensile stress and inner pressure, i.e. pore
pressure P0, have the same effect on the Grifth crack (You, 2005b),
therefore the breakdown pressure is
Q s1
Pb 3sh sH min 0
; T P0
K0
(17)
Q0 s1
; T
K0
P0
(18)
The pore pressure is not lower than the static hydraulic pressure
at the test interval, which is 10 MPa at a depth of 1000 m. The
tensile strength of rock is around and usually lower than 10 MPa.
Therefore, the magnitude of right side of Eq. (18) is around zero.
Certainly, the stress magnitudes obtained from hydraulic fracturing always satisfy Eq. (18). Stresses from ve boreholes (Chen
et al., 2004; Tan et al., 2004; Kang et al., 2007) are in the region
of sH < 2sh, as presented in Table 4.
Location
Depth (m)
sz (MPa)
sh (MPa)
sH (MPa)
sH 2sh (MPa)
Xinwen
790
1220
187
220
33
143
154
790
393
498
20.94
32.33
4.95
5.82
0.86
3.78
4.13
21.17
10.07
12.75
16.56
22.8
5.33
5.16
4.4
6.98
6.8
13.8
11.4
13.3
32.39
42.1
8.84
8.67
5.4
12.98
12.05
21.1
17.88
20.35
0.73
3.5
1.82
1.65
3.4
0.98
1.55
6.5
4.92
6.25
Cipin
Zigui
However, the real in-situ stresses may be different from Eq. (18).
For example, the in-situ stresses measured with overcoring test
(Pine et al., 1983; Anderson and Christianson, 2003; Tan et al., 2004;
Cai et al., 2010) may exhibit large magnitudes of sH 2sh, as presented in Table 5. Furthermore, magnitudes of 3sh sH are negative
at test locations in the South Crofty and Oskarshamn. The borehole
should break under pore pressure about 5 MPa, not need pump
pressure at all, if it was poured with water. The borehole of Ertan at
a depth of 30 m would crack after drilling, for the magnitudes of
3sh sH is low to 9 MPa, about the tensile strength of surrounding rocks.
One principal stress is nearly along the vertical direction in
every case presented in Table 5; therefore, the hydraulic fracturing
method might be used in these situations, but breakdown pressure
Pb should be lower than the shut-in pressure, i.e. the minor principal stress sh. In other words, Pb would not be the peak value in the
rst cycle, but the point where the slope of pressure-time curve
begins to decline.
6. Conclusions
None of strength criteria, of which the parameters are determined from conventional triaxial compression strengths, might
present reasonable tensile strength for all rocks. Tensile strength of
rock is an independent parameter to be determined from test.
The generalized HeB criterion usually presents a tensile
strength lower than the measured magnitude. However, the
exponential criterion predicts well tensile strengths for granites,
but overestimates for other rocks; therefore, the criterion may be
extended to tensile-compressive stresses with the tangent line
combined a tension cut-off, and applicable to rock engineering,
such as the estimation of in-situ stress with hydraulic fracturing.
Breakdown pressure may be lower than the shut-in pressure in
some cases; and it is not the peak value in the rst cycle, but the
point where the slope of pressure-time curve begins to decline.
Conict of interest
Table 4
In-situ stresses measured with hydraulic fracturing test.
Lixian
24.5
30
40.5
Linglong
290
290
410
410
South Crofty 790
Oskarshamn 490.5
501.6
sV
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Mingqing You obtained his B.Sc. from Fudan University,
Shanghai, and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou, China. He is
now a professor of Henan Polytechnic University. He has
been involved in mechanical and geotechnical research
and education for nearly 30 years. He is the author or coauthor of more than 100 scientic papers and he serves
in the Editorial Board of Chinese Journal of Rock Mechanics
and Engineering.