213 research outputs found
A Citizen\u27s Handbook: South Dakota Governmental Finance and Employment
This publication can assist South Dakotans to obtain a better understanding of, and to engage in more active participation in their state and local governments. This understanding and participation require data and a certain amount of interpretative information on the operations of state and local governments in South Dakota. This publication will not answer all questions. Yet, it will answer many questions and provide the basis for further exploration of the operations of state and local governments in South Dakota
Fault growth and acoustic emissions in confined granite
The failure process in a brittle granite was studied by using acoustic emission techniques to obtain three dimensional locations of the microfracturing events. During a creep experiment the nucleation of faulting coincided with the onset of tertiary creep, but the development of the fault could not be followed because the failure occurred catastrophically. A technique has been developed that enables the failure process to be stabilized by controlling the axial stress to maintain a constant acoustic emission rate. As a result the post-failure stress-strain curve has been followed quasi-statically, extending to hours the fault growth process that normally would occur violently in a fraction of a second. The results from the rate-controlled experiments show that the fault plane nucleated at a point on the sample surface after the stress-strain curve reached its peak. Before nucleation, the microcrack growth was distributed throughout the sample. The fault plane then grew outward from the nucleation site and was accompanied by a gradual drop in stress. Acoustic emission locations showed that the fault propagated as a fracture front (process zone) with dimensions of 1 to 3 cm. As the fracture front passed by a given fixed point on the fault plane, the subsequent acoustic emission would drop. When growth was allowed to progress until the fault bisected the sample, the stress dropped to the frictional strength. These observations are in accord with the behavior predicted by Rudnicki and Rice's bifurcation analysis but conflict with experiments used to infer that shear localization would occur in brittle rock while the material is still hardening
Power Laws, Precursors and Predictability During Failure
We investigate the dynamics of a modified Burridge-Knopoff model by
introducing a dissipative term to mimic the bursts of acoustic emission (AE)
from rock samples. The model explains many features of the statistics of AE
signals observed in experiments such as the crossover in the exponent value
from relatively small amplitude AE signals to larger regime, and their
dependence on the pulling speed. Significantly, we find that the cumulative
energy dissipated identified with acoustic emission can be used to predict a
major slip event. We also find a data collapse of the acoustic activity for
several major slip events describable by a universal stretched exponential with
corrections in terms of time-to-failure.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, Final version with minor change
Acoustic Emission from Paper Fracture
We report tensile failure experiments on paper sheets. The acoustic emission
energy and the waiting times between acoustic events follow power-law
distributions. This remains true while the strain rate is varied by more than
two orders of magnitude. The energy statistics has the exponent and the waiting times the exponent , in
particular for the energy roughly independent of the strain rate. These results
do not compare well with fracture models, for (brittle) disordered media, which
as such exhibit criticality. One reason may be residual stresses, neglected in
most theories.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
Rupture by damage accumulation in rocks
The deformation of rocks is associated with microcracks nucleation and
propagation, i.e. damage. The accumulation of damage and its spatial
localization lead to the creation of a macroscale discontinuity, so-called
"fault" in geological terms, and to the failure of the material, i.e. a
dramatic decrease of the mechanical properties as strength and modulus. The
damage process can be studied both statically by direct observation of thin
sections and dynamically by recording acoustic waves emitted by crack
propagation (acoustic emission). Here we first review such observations
concerning geological objects over scales ranging from the laboratory sample
scale (dm) to seismically active faults (km), including cliffs and rock masses
(Dm, hm). These observations reveal complex patterns in both space (fractal
properties of damage structures as roughness and gouge), time (clustering,
particular trends when the failure approaches) and energy domains (power-law
distributions of energy release bursts). We use a numerical model based on
progressive damage within an elastic interaction framework which allows us to
simulate these observations. This study shows that the failure in rocks can be
the result of damage accumulation
Statistical properties of microcracking in polyurethane foams under tensile test, influence of temperature and density
We report tensile failure experiments on polyurethane (PU) foams. Experiments
have been performed by imposing a constant strain rate. We work on
heterogeneous materials for whom the failure does not occur suddenly and can
develop as a multistep process through a succession of microcracks that end at
pores. The acoustic energy and the waiting times between acoustic events follow
power-law distributions. This remains true while the foam density is varied.
However, experiments at low temperatures (PU foams more brittle) have not
yielded power-laws for the waiting times. The cumulative acoustic energy has no
power law divergence at the proximity of the failure point which is
qualitatively in agreement with other experiments done at imposed strain. We
notice a plateau in cumulative acoustic energy that seems to occur when a
single crack starts to propagate
Complex Fluids and Hydraulic Fracturing
Nearly 70 years old, hydraulic fracturing is a core technique for stimulating hydrocarbon production in a majority of oil and gas reservoirs. Complex fluids are implemented in nearly every step of the fracturing process, most significantly to generate and sustain fractures and transport and distribute proppant particles during and following fluid injection. An extremely wide range of complex fluids are used: naturally occurring polysaccharide and synthetic polymer solutions, aqueous physical and chemical gels, organic gels, micellar surfactant solutions, emulsions, and foams. These fluids are loaded over a wide range of concentrations with particles of varying sizes and aspect ratios and are subjected to extreme mechanical and environmental conditions. We describe the settings of hydraulic fracturing (framed by geology), fracturing mechanics and physics, and the critical role that non-Newtonian fluid dynamics and complex fluids play in the hydraulic fracturing process
KG2B, a collaborative benchmarking exercise for estimating the permeability of the Grimsel granodiorite - Part 1: Measurements, pressure dependence and pore-fluid effects
Measuring the permeability of tight rocks remains a challenging task. In addition to the traditional sources of errors that affect more permeable formations (e.g. sample selection, non-representative specimens, disturbance introduced during sample acquisition and preparation), tight rocks can be particularly prone to solid–fluid interactions and thus more sensitive to the methods, procedures and techniques used to measure permeability. To address this problem, it is desirable to collect, for a single material, measurements obtained by different methods and pore-fluids. For that purpose a collaborative benchmarking exercise involving 24 laboratories was organized for measuring the permeability of a single low permeability material, the Grimsel granodiorite, at a common effective confining pressure (5 MPa). The objectives of the benchmark were: (i) to compare the results for a given method, (ii) to compare the results between different methods, (iii) to analyze the accuracy of each method, (iv) to study the influence of experimental conditions (especially the nature of pore fluid), (v) to discuss the relevance of indirect methods and models and finally (vi) to suggest good practice for low permeability measurements. In total 39 measurements were collected that allowed us to discuss the influence of (i) pore-fluid, (ii) measurement method, (iii) sample size and (iv) pressure sensitivity. Discarding some outliers from the bulk data set (4 out of 39) an average permeability of 1.11 × 10−18 m² with a standard deviation of 0.57 × 10−18 m² was obtained. The most striking result was the large difference in permeability for gas measurements compared to liquid measurements. Regardless of the method used, gas permeability was higher than liquid permeability by a factor approximately 2 (kgas = 1.28 × 10−18 m² compared to kliquid = 0.65 × 10−18 m²). Possible explanations are that (i) liquid permeability was underestimated due to fluid-rock interactions (ii) gas permeability was overestimated due to insufficient correction for gas slippage and/or (iii) gases and liquids do not probe exactly the same porous networks. The analysis of Knudsen numbers shows that the gas permeability measurements were performed in conditions for which the Klinkenberg correction is sufficient. Smaller samples had a larger scatter of permeability values, suggesting that their volume were below the Representative Elementary Volume. The pressure dependence of permeability was studied by some of the participating teams in the range 1–30 MPa and could be fitted to an exponential law k = ko.exp(–γPeff) with γ = 0.093 MPa−1. Good practice rules for measuring permeability in tight materials are also provided
- …