Acoustic emission monitoring of hydraulic fracturing in laboratory and field

In the hydraulic fracturing tests, water was injected into four kinds of granitic rock specimens with different grain sizes. The fault plane solutions of acoustic emission (AE) indicated that the shear fracturing is dominant in the specimens with larger grains whereas the tensile fracturing is dominant in those of smaller grains. In addition, the experiments were conducted in,granitic rock specimens of the same kind, under three different conditions: injection of water, injection of viscous oil and pressurization via a urethane sleeve. The shear fracturing was dominant due to water injection and the pressurization whereas the tensile fracturing was dominant due to viscous oil injection. Further in a field, AE was monitored by a borehole sonde in the hydraulic fracturing to measure rock stress. The AE count rates increased with closing and reopening hydraulically induced cracks. The result suggested that AE monitoring could improve the reliability and the accuracy of the hydraulic fracturing stress measurements. (C) 2001 Science Ltd. All rights reserved.