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Quantitative analysis of meso-damage evolution for shale under in situ uniaxial compression conditions

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Abstract

In order to investigate the meso-damage evolution of shale, four uniaxial compressive tests were conducted using X-ray micro-computed tomography (micro-CT) equipment. Two of the four samples were conducted the in situ compression tests, from which a series of CT images at different stress levels were got during the loading process. Based on those CT images, a new damage variable was first proposed to quantitatively analyze the damage evolution of shale under uniaxial compression condition. Analysis results show that the evolution of the damage variable is consistent with both the mesoscopic CT images and the macroscopic stress–strain, which can well characterize the meso-damage evolution of shale. Additionally, the parameters of crack area and crack length were obtained to quantitatively describe the cracking characteristics. The statistical results demonstrate that the distributions of crack are closely related to the scanning stress levels and the scanning elevations. These quantitative conclusions are important to understand the meso-damage evolution and the cracking mechanism of shale.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments. This work is supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDB10030301 and XDB10030304), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41227901), and the National Science and Technology Major Projects (Grant No. 2016ZX05034003-05).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Yongting Duan, Xiao Li, Jianming He, Shouding Li & Runqing Zhou

  2. College of Earth Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yongting Duan, Xiao Li, Jianming He & Shouding Li

  3. Institutions of Earth Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Yongting Duan, Xiao Li, Jianming He, Shouding Li & Runqing Zhou

Authors
  1. Yongting Duan
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  2. Xiao Li
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  3. Jianming He
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  4. Shouding Li
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  5. Runqing Zhou
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Contributions

Each author has made contribution to the present paper. Xiao Li and Yongting Duan conceived and designed the experiments; Yongting Duan and Runqing Zhou performed the experiments; Jianming He and Yongting Duan processed the experimental data and wrote this paper. General supervision was provided by Xiao Li and Shouding Li. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yongting Duan or Xiao Li.

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Duan, Y., Li, X., He, J. et al. Quantitative analysis of meso-damage evolution for shale under in situ uniaxial compression conditions. Environ Earth Sci 77, 154 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-018-7336-3

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