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Influences of Coal Seam Heterogeneity on Hydraulic Fracture Geometry: An In Situ Observation Perspective

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Article Highlights

  • The three-dimensional patterns of hydraulic fractures are presented with in situ underground observations.

  • The coal body structure and coalbed structure greatly affect the hydraulic fracture geometry.

  • Hydraulic fractures mainly develop in undeformed coal and weakly deformed coal.

  • Weak layers and strongly deformed coal should not be perforated during fracturing engineering.

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Abbreviations

τ sh :

Shear stress at the interface

τ se :

Tensional stress

τ 0 :

Cohesive shear strength of the interface

μ f :

Friction coefficient

σn :

Is the normal stress

σ H :

Maximum horizontal principal stress

σ h :

Minimum horizontal principal stress

σ v :

Vertical stress

H :

Buried depth of the measurement points.

ρ :

Density

R c :

Uniaxial compressive strength

μ :

Poisson’s ratio

E :

Young’s modulus

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by National Science and Technology Major Project of China (No. 2016ZX05067001-007), National Natural Science Foundation of China (U19B2009), and Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing (cstc2020jcyj-bshX0035). In addition, special thanks to Shanxi Jinneng Holding Group Co. Ltd of China for providing the observation conditions in the coal mines. These supports are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Chongqing University, 174 Shazheng St, Shapingba District, Chongqing, 400044, China

    Rui Li

  2. School of Earth Resources, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Rui Li & Shengwei Wang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Coal and Coalbed Methane Co-Mining, Shanxi Jinneng Holding Group Co. Ltd, Jincheng, 048000, China

    Guofu Li

  4. Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 78731, USA

    Jiacheng Wang

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  1. Rui Li
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  2. Shengwei Wang
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  3. Guofu Li
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  4. Jiacheng Wang
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Contributions

RL: Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation, Writing—original draft, Validation. SW: Investigation, Supervision, Validation. GL: Formal analysis, Project administration. JW: Investigation, Formal Analysis, Data curation.

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Correspondence to Rui Li.

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Li, R., Wang, S., Li, G. et al. Influences of Coal Seam Heterogeneity on Hydraulic Fracture Geometry: An In Situ Observation Perspective. Rock Mech Rock Eng 55, 4517–4527 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-022-02890-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-022-02890-z

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