Research Projects

Injection induced seismicity in deep geological formation may cause fluid overpressure. The excess fluid pore pressure brings the reservoir close to failure conditions, likely to lead to the formation of secondary fractures. The fracture formations during fluid injection and post-injection seismicity are extremely important and the mechanics is not completely understood due to the involvement of natural and external factors. However, the fracture formation and interaction with native reservoir facture/faults may also favor earthquakes due to sliding of the fracture and the modification of stress fields. The objective of this study is to understand mechanisms of fracture initiation/formation, propagation and induced seismicity. To understand these processes, the mechanical behavior of reservoir rock at different stress states is extremely important. The aim of this project is to perform laboratory based experiments followed by development of the validated numerical models which can accurately predict the long term behavior of the deep sub-surface strata for various applications. The following key objectives are formulated:  Determine the rock-response at native deep sub-surface conditions  Identify the evolution of weak zones in deep rock samples with loading and unloading  Investigate relationship between fracture formation and stress fields at varying rock strata conditions.  Investigate the mechanics triggering the seismicity in deep underlying reservoir.  Evolution of rock response under fluid flow states for deeper reservoirs. The above objectives will be achieved through various experimental and numerical techniques available at the institutes