• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.23-33
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• 2002

There are two case history. One is the case of 3 wells-group well system-drilled and artificially hydrofractured for dewatering to help to excavate and treat deep building foundation. The recoveries of groundwater of 3 wells are increased 29%, 42% and 110% respectively through hydrofracturing. Simultaneous pumping test reveals that 3 wells are geohydrologically interconnected considering lowered specific capacity comprising influence of additional drawdown effect by other 2 wells compared to single well test. Response time effect during single well test shows that dorminant lineaments are more expandable to other geological structures. The other one is the case of 28% increasing of groundwater productivity for domestic use by hydrofracturing.

• Journal of Industrial Technology
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• v.28 no.B
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• pp.111-116
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• 2008

Since the hydraulic fracturing field testing method was introduced first to Korean geotechnical engineers in 1994, there have been lots of progresses in a hardware system as well as an interpretation tool. The hydrofracturing system of first generation was the pipe-line type, and it has been developed to a wire-line system at their second generation. The current up-to-date system is more compact and is able to be operated by all-in-one system. With a progress in a hardware system, the software for analyzing in-situ stress regime has also been progressed. The shut-in pressure, which is the most ambiguous parameter to be obtained from hydrofracturing pressure curves, can now be acquired automatically from the various methods. While the hardware and software for hydrofracturing tests are being developed during the last decade, the author could accumulate the field test results which can cover the almost whole area of South Korea. Currently these field data are used widely in a feasibility study or a preliminary design step for tunnel construction in Korea. Regarding the difficulties in a site selection and a test performance for the in-situ stress measurement at an off-shore area, the in-situ stress regime obtained from the field experiences in the land area can be used indirectly for the design of a sub-sea tunnel. From the hydrofracturing stress measurements, the trend of magnitude and direction of in-situ stress field was shown identically with the geological information in Korea.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.74-85
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• 2003

To increase the yield from groundwater wells in various rock types by hydrofracturing, tests of 12 wells were carried out as a part of sustainable groundwater development and artificial recharge project. Test wells are selected 5 wells in Jurassic granites, 2 wells in Cretaceous volcanics, 4 wells in Cretaceous sedimentary rocks and one well in Pre-Cambrian gneiss. The results show that specific capacity of II wells increased about 7% to 366%, while a well in Cretaceous sedimentary rock decreased about 43.4% owing to plugging of fault clay. Meanwhile, impact distances influenced due to hydrofracturing ranged from 5.4 m to 82.7 m from the test wells, actual drawdown data measured during the pumping test after hydrofracturing are more or less decreased and reveals balanced drawdown.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.133-140
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• 1990

Th. mechanism of hydraulic fracturing in sandy soil is elucidated by investigating the relation among the hydrofracturing pressure($P{_f}^{\prime}$), the confinning pressure(${\sigma}_3^{\prime}$), the tensile strength of gelled sand(${\sigma}_t$), and the permeability of sand(k) through many injection tests on several kind of sand.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.409-417
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• 2016

The shale gas is emerging as one of the oil and gas resources which can replace the traditional oil and gas resources. As the shale layer where the shale gas is deposited has low permeability, the hydrofracturing method is required to improve the productivity. This study is designed to conduct the laboratory hydrofracturing test on the samples which are modeled after the drilling hole having the general drilling hole and spiral groove. And compare the initial fracturing pressure and fluid contact between them in order to the result of the hydrofracturing depending on the shape of the drilling hole. In addition, the results were compared with the numerical modeling values from 3DEC and they were also compared with the data from the advance researches. It was found from the study that rather than the contact area of the high pressures water, the force concentration depending on the form of guide hole was more effective in the hydrofracturing.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.128-137
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• 2011

The shut-in pressure calculated in common hydrofracturing test for vertical borehole equals generally to the minimum horizontal principal stress, so it should be considered as an essential parameter for determining the in-situ stress regime around the rock mass. It shows usually an ambiguous value in pressure-time history curves, however, because of the relationship between the behavior of hydraulic fractures and the condition of remote stress regime. In this study, a series of numerical analyses have been carried out to compare several methods for determining the shut-in pressure during hydrofracturing. The hydraulic-mechanical coupling has been applied to numerical analysis for simulating the fracture propagation by hydraulic pressure, and the different discontinuity geometry has been considered in numerical models to examine the effect of numerical element shape on fracture propagation pattern. From the numerical simulations with the four different discontinuity geometries, it was revealed that the shut-in pressure obtained from graphical methods rather than statistical method was relatively small. Consequently a care should be taken in selecting a method for determining the shut-in pressure when a stress anomaly around borehole and a fracture propagation with complicate mechanism are considered.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.209-222
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• 1996

Shut-in pressure, reopenting pressure and fracture orientation are very important parameters to be evaluated precisely in in-situ stress measurement by hydraulic fracturing. Graphical methods on pressure-time curves have been conventionally used, even though these are seriously dependent on subjectivity of interpreters. So there have been many demands on new method to objectivity in determining parameters. We have developed integrated hydrofracturing data processing program (HYDFRAC), based on nonlinear regression analysis and can be invoked under the Window graphical user interface. HYDFRAC consiste of three routines, that is shut-in pressure routine, reopening pressure routine, and fracture delineation routine. Each of routines include independent modules according to parameter determination methods. Its application to field tests ensured both objectivity and facility in determining of hydraulic fracturing parameters. Determining shut-in pressures at each pressurization cycles, we adopted the exponential pressure-decay method(EPD method), the bilinear pressure-decay-rate method (PDR method), and the tangent intersection method in order to find the pressurization-cyclic tendency of shut-in pressures. The estimated pressure by PDR method exists in the range of the upper and lower values by EPD method, and lies near to the upper value more than the lower. Being the pressurization cycle increased, the range of upper and lower limits come to be stabilized gradually. By graphical superposition method and bilinear pressure-accumulated volume method, reopening pressures were determined. Vertical and inclined fracture attitudes were determined by applying the directional statistics and sinusoidal curve fitting, respectively. The results of evaluation of hydrofracturing parameters showed that statistical methods could enhance the objectivity better than graphical methods.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Rock Mechanics Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.79-88
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• 2008

Since the hydraulic fracturing field testing method was introduced first to Korean geotechnical engineers in 1994, there have been lots of progresses in a hardware system as well as an interpretation tool. The hydrofracturing system of first generation was the pipe-line type, so it was not easy to handle. It had been modified to a wire-line system at their second generation. It was more compact one but it also needed an additional air-compressor. Our current system is much more compact and operated by all-in-one system, so it doesn't need an additional air-compressor. With a progress in a hardware system, the software for analyzing the in-situ stress regime has also been progressed. For example, the shut-in pressure, which is the most ambiguous parameter to be obtained from hydrofracturing pressure curves, can now be acquired automatically from the various methods. While the hardware and software for hydrofracturing tests are being developed during the last decade, the author could accumulate the field test results which can cover the almost whole area of South Korea. Currently these field data are used widely in a feasibility study or a preliminary design step for tunnel construction in Korea. Regarding the difficulties in a site selection and a test performance for the in-situ stress measurement at an off-shore area, the in-situ stress regime obtained from the field experiences in the land area can be used indirectly for the design of a sub-sea tunnel. From the hydrofracturing stress measurements, the trend of magnitude and direction of in-situ stress field was shown identically with the geological information in Korea.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.351-363
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• 2009

Two orthogonal joint sets develop well only in sandstone beds in the sandstone-mudstone sequences of Gumi and Dasa outcrops within Cretaceous Gyeongsang Basin. And various joint data are similar in the beds of the same thickness in both outcrops, meaning that the joint sets were homogeneously produced by extensional deformation in the same regional stress field. Most of joints in the sandstone beds are orthogonal to, and confined by bed boundaries, which are believed to be formed by hydrofracturing during consolidation after burial. Two orthogonal joint sets are considered to be almost coeval on the basis of mutual abutting relationship which makes up fracture grid-lock and a product of rapid switching of ${\sigma}_2$ and ${\sigma}_3$ axes with constant ${\sigma}_1$ direction oriented to vertical. The joint sets in the sandstone beds show planar surfaces, parallel orientations and regular spacing, with joint spacing linearly proportional to bed thickness. The spacing distributions of the joints seem to correspond to log-normal to almost normal distribution in most of the beds. But multilayer joints do not display regular spacing and dominant size. Either joint set in this study is characterized by a high level of joint density and a saturated spacing distribution as indicated by the mode/mean ratio values and the Cv(coefficient of variance) values. Joint aperture tends to increase with the vertical length of the joints controlled by bed thickness.

• Tunnel and Underground Space
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.212-223
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• 2014

In this study, the stability analyses for metal mine roadways at a great depth were performed. In-situ stress measurements using hydrofracturing, numerous laboratory tests for rock cores and GSI & RMR classifications were conducted in order to find the physical properties of both intact rock and in-situ rock mass distributed in the studied metal mine. Through the scenario analysis and probabilistic assessment on the results of rock mass classification, the in-situ ground conditions of mine roadways were divided into the best, the average and the worst cases, respectively. The roadway stabilities corresponding to the respective conditions were assessed by way of the elasto-plastic analysis. In addition, the appropriate roadway shapes and the support patterns were examined through the numerical analyses considering the blast damaged zone around roadway. It was finally shown to be necessary to reduce the radius of roadway roof curvature and/or to install the crown reinforcement in order to enhance the stability of studied mine roadways.