Chapter 24: Rock creep mechanics

International audienc

Rock mechanics is meeting the challenge of geo-energies

International audienceThe exploitation of geo-energies often leads to difficulties that rock mechanics helps to overcome. These essentially consist ofinstability problems caused by changes in the state of stress, associated pore pressures, and temperature. Besides the classicalnear field problem of wellbore stability, the changes can impact a larger scale, triggering earthquakes and inducing seismicity. Inthis paper the current approaches envisaged to tackle these problems are briefly reviewed and discussed. Some extensions thathave been made possible thanks to the combination of new numerical techniques is outlined