No abstract

Hydraulic fracturing is an important technique in the development of enhanced geothermal systems and unconventional resources. Although the fracture modes induced by hydraulic fracturing influence the recovery efficiency of the resources, the current understanding of this relationship is insufficient. In this study, we considered the acoustic emissions (AEs) induced during hydraulic fracturing under uniaxial loading conditions in the laboratory, and applied a moment tensor analysis by carefully correcting the coupling condition and directivity of AE transducers. Experiments were conducted for two types of Kurokami-jima granite samples: those with a rift plane perpendicular (Type H) or parallel (Type V) to the expected direction of fracture propagation (i.e. along the loading axis). In the experiments, both sample types experienced a significant number of shear, tensile and compressive events. The dominant fracture mode for Type H samples is found to be tensile events in which the fracture plane is parallel to the loading axis, whereas for Type V samples, shear events are dominant. This difference suggests that the dominant fracture modes induced by hydraulic fracturing are highly dependent on the relationship between the direction of fracture propagation and orientation of pre-existing weak planes.

Structural and oxygen content changes of hexagonal HoMnO manganite at the stability boundary in the perovskite phase have been studied by X-ray diffraction and thermogravimetry using in situ oxidation and reduction processes at elevated temperatures in oxygen and air. The oxygen storage properties during structural transformation between stoichiometric Hex0 and oxygen-loaded Hex1 phases, transition temperatures and kinetics of the oxygen incorporation and release are reported for materials prepared by the solid-state synthesis and high-impact mechanical milling. Long-term annealing experiments have shown that the Hex0 (δ = 0) → Hex1 (δ ≈ 0.28) phase transition is limited by the surface reaction and nucleation of the new phase for HoMnO 15MM. The temperatures of Hex0 ↔ Hex1 transitions have been established at 290 °C and 250 °C upon heating and cooling, respectively, at a rate of 0.1° min, also indicating that the temperature hysteresis of the transition could possibly be as small as 10 °C in the equilibrium. Ball-milling of HoMnO has only a small effect on improving the speed of the reduction/oxidation processes in oxygen, but importantly, allowed for considerable oxygen incorporation in air at a temperature range of 220-255 °C after prolonged heating. The Mn 2p XAS results of the Mn valence in oxygen loaded samples support the oxygen content determined by the TG method. The magnetic susceptibility data of the effective Mn valence gave inconclusive results due to dominating magnetism of the Ho ions. Comparison of HoMnO with previously studied DyMnO indicates that a tiny increase in the ionic size of lanthanide has a huge effect on the redox properties of hexagonal manganites and that practical properties could be significantly improved by synthesizing the larger average size (Y,Ln)MnO manganites.