Systematic investigation of stress-induced fracture closure and permeability evolution in Lac du Bonnet granite
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Fracture permeability is influenced by the mechanical properties of geomaterials, surface geometry, aperture distribution, and stress conditions. However, accurately characterizing fracture surfaces and aperture distributions, along with their effects on permeability under stress remains challenging. This study systematically investigates the evolution of fracture permeability and closure behavior in Lac du Bonnet granite through integrated steady-state flow experiments, high-resolution laser scanning, and 3D numerical modelling. A 3D digital twin model of the fractured sample was developed to quantify key geometric characteristics of fracture surfaces, including surface gradient, height deviation, mean curvature, Gaussian curvature, and spatial distribution of peaks and valleys. These metrics were used to evaluate their influence on fracture openness. Fracture closure measurements were incorporated as boundary conditions in the numerical model to assess the evolution of the aperture field under varying stress levels. Statistical analysis of the computed aperture fields and corresponding fluid activity was conducted to provide insights into heterogeneous fracture closure behavior. The results reveal that fracture permeability follows a quadratic exponential decline under confining stress of 5–40 MPa, leading to an overall reduction of 82.1 %, while fracture aperture decreases exponentially by 60.4 %. Permeability hysteresis was observed after stress relief, indicating significant impact of stress exposure history on fluid flow behavior. Throughout the experiments, hydraulic aperture variations closely aligned with mechanical aperture measurements, validating the applicability of the cubic law. Based on these experiment results, empirical models describing permeability-stress and mechanical-hydraulic aperture relationships were established, and a modification to the cubic law was proposed. The proposed statistical aperture distribution analysis provides a novel approach for quantifying heterogeneous fracture closure, while the modified cubic law, based on the mechanical-hydraulic aperture relationship, enhances rapid predictions of fracture permeability under varying stress levels. • Stress induced fracture permeability alteration in Lac du Bonnet granite studied. • 3D model used to analyze fracture closure and aperture distribution. • Fracture surface geometric features quantified with laser scanning. • Fracture and hydraulic aperture variations validate cubic law. • Fracture permeability hysteresis observed after stress relief.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".