SFB 1313 Publication "On Hydraulic Fracturing in Fully and Partially Saturated Brittle Porous Material"

New SFB 1313 publication, published in the Springer book Current Trends and Open Problems in Computational Mechanics. The chapter has been developed within SFB 1313's research project B02:

"On Hydraulic Fracturing in Fully and Partially Saturated Brittle Porous Material" (pp 111-119)

Authors

• Wolfgang Ehlers (University of Stuttgart, member of the SFB 1313 Advisory Board, former principal investigator of SFB 1313 research project B02)
  
• Alixa Sonntag (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project B02)
  
• Arndt Wagner (University of Stuttgart, SFB 1313 research project B02)
  

Abstract

Hydraulic fracturing or in short fracking is a technique, where a fracking fluid is pressed in the underground with the goal to open fractures for the exploitation of oil and natural gas, for geothermal purposes and further applications. Although fracking techniques are widely used in practice, they are scientifically not well established. This is due to the fact that the underground is a complicated matter made of rock or soil filled with fluids, such as water and air. In a continuum- and computational-mechanical environment, fluid- and gas-filled porous media are treated on the basis of the Theory of Porous Media, thus building the foundation of a successful description of both saturated and partially saturated porous media. In the present article, this is enhanced by the phase-field strategy applied to fracturing processes.