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A laboratory study of hydraulic fracturing breakdown pressure in tablerock

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Article  in  Geosciences Journal · September 2001

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Geosciences Journal
Vol. 5, No. 3, p. 263 271, September 2001
A laboratory study of hydraulic fracturing breakdown pressure in table-
rock sandstone
Insun Song Nondestructive Research Lab. of Cultural Property, Kongju National University, Chungnam 314-701, Korea
(e-mail: isong@kongju.ac.kr)
Mancheol Suh Nondestructive Research Lab. of Cultural Property, Kongju National University, Chungnam 314-701, Korea
(e-mail: mcsuh@kongju.ac.kr)
Kyoung Sik Won Geotech Consultant Co. Ltd., Kyunggi 435-826, Korea (e-mail: geoinfo@geoinfo.co.kr)
Bezalel Haimson Geological Engineering Program, University of Wisconsin-Madison, WI 53706, USA
(e-mail: haimson@engr.wisc.edu)
ABSTRACT: We carried out hydraulic fracturing tests in hollow
cylinders of Tablerock sandstone subjected to vertical (σ σv), con-
fining (σσh) and pore (Po) pressures. Borehole fluid was injected at
a constant flow rate until a peak pressure was reached, and ver-
tical fracture was observed. Based on the analysis of pressure-time
records, we submit that breakdown occurs before peak pressure
Pp in the first cycle. In a series of tests in which σh, σv, and Po were
kept constant throughout, breakdown pressure Pc increased sig-
nificantly with wellbore pressurization rate, and appeared to asymp-
totically approach to an upper and lower bound corresponding to
fast and slow rates, respective1y as expected by Detournay and
Cheng (1992). Another series of tests conducted at a preset pres-
surization rate in unjacketed specimens (σ σh=Po) revealed that
(Pc−Po) increased with confining/pore pressure, contrary to the
constant (Pc−Po) based on the Terzaghi’s effective stress law. We
modified the Detournay−Cheng criterion by replacing the Terza-
ghi's effective stress with a general effective stress. More series of
hydraulic fracturing tests in jacketed specimens reinforced the
applicability of the modified Detournay−Cheng criterion to Table-
rock sandstone in terms of correctly estimating the relationship
between the unknown far-field stress and the typically known test
parameters: breakdown pressure, initial pore pressure and pres-
surization rate.
Key words: hydrofracturing test, in situ stress measurement, pres-
surization rate, pore pressure, breakdown pressure
1. INTRODUCTION
Hydraulic fracturing (HF) tests for the determination of in
situ stress magnitudes and directions consist of injecting
fluid into an isolated segment of a wellbore until a tensile
fracture develops. Breakdown pressure, Pc, is defined as the
wellbore pressure necessary to induce the hydraulic frac-
ture. If one of the far-field principal stresses acts along the
vertical wellbore, a vertical fracture develops typically along
the direction of the maximum horizontal principal stress.
The Pc is given in the closed-form of analytic solution in
terms of the far-field horizontal principal stresses.
There are two classical (or conventional) HF criteria to
establish equations between Pc and in situ horizontal prin-
cipal stresses; one based on e1astic theory for impermeable
rocks (Hubbert and Willis, 1957) and the other based on
poroelastic theory considering the poroelastic stress induced by
the fluid permeation into rocks (Haimson and Fairhurst, 1967).
The Hubbert and Willis (H−W) HF criterion is given by:
P c – P o = T hf – 3σ h + σ H – 2P o (1)
The Haimson and Fairhurst (H−F) HF criterion is written as:
T hf + 3 σ h – σ H – 2P o
P c – P o = ----------------------------------------------
- (2)
2 – 2η
where σh and σH are the least and the maximum horizontal
principal stresses, respectively. Po is initial pore pressure in
the rock formation. Thf is hydraulic fracturing tensile strength
and η is poroelastic parameter given by:
α ( 1 – 2ν )
η = ----------------------- 0 ≤ η ≤ 0.5 (3)
2( 1 – ν)
where α is the Biot parameter (Biot and Willis, 1957) and ν
is the Poisson’s ratio. Two assumptions were made in both
H−W and H−F criteria. One is that a tensile fracture occurs
when the effective tangential stress at wellbore wall reaches
the HF tensile strength (Thf) of the rock. The other assump-
tion is that Terzaghi’s (1943) effective stress law governs the
effect of pore fluid on rock stress, i.e.
σ ij = σij – δ ijP o
eff
(i, j=1, 2, 3) (4)
where σ eff is the effective stress and δij is the Kronecker


ij
delta (δij=1 for i=j and δij=0 for i j).
There are several issues that are not satisfactorily described
by the two classical criteria. Firstly, there is no obvious dis-
tinction between permeable and impermeable rocks. Per-
meability varies from rock to rock so that it is impossible to
determine whether a given rock is permeable or imperme-
able. Secondly, the H−F criterion (equation 2) does not
degenerate towards the H−W criterion (equation 1) as the
permeability/porosity (corresponding to α) becomes zero
264 Insun Song, Mancheol Suh, Kyoung Sik Won and Bezalel Haimson

(α→0). Thirdly, neither H−W nor H−F criterion incorporates
the effects of the wellbore pressurization rate and wellbore
size, which are substantial in some experimental results
such as those by Haimson and Zhao (1991), Ito and Hayash
(1991) and Schmitt and Zoback (1992). Efforts to figure out
these ambiguities have been limited to theoretical analyses
(Detournay and Cheng, 1992; Detournay and Carbonell,
1994), while laboratory verifications have been rare.
In little permeable rocks, the effect of wellbore pressur-
ization rate may be less important because the wellbore
pressure can be raised in quasi-static condition. The pres-
surization rate effect, however, becomes more important in
high1y permeable rocks because it is indispensable to speed
up the injection flow rate or to increase the fluid viscosity
to overcome losses due to leak-off into rock pores (Song
and Haimson, 2000). We carried out laboratory hydrofrac-
turing simulations in hollow cylinders of highly permeable
Tablerock sandstone. The general objective of our research
was to assess the potential for estimating in situ stress mag-
nitudes from HF pressures in the high porosity sandstones,
with particular reference to (1) the determination of Pc, (2)
injection pressurization rate effect on Pc, and (3) pore pressure
effect on Pc. The ultimate goal of our project is to establish
whether HF technique is appropriate for estimating in situ
stress magnitudes in highly permeable sandstones based on
experimental results.
2. ROCK TYPE TESTED
For hydraulic fracturing experiments, we have obtained
Tablerock sandstone from a group of sandstone layers within
the lower Idaho Group, upper Miocene in age (Wood and
Burnham, 1987). The rock is classified as arkosic sandstone
due to high content of K−feldspar (Prothero and Schwab, 1966).
The formation varies stratigraphically in terms of color,
rock texture and mineral composition. The sandstone used
for HF tests is ‘tan’-colored, composed of angular to sub-
angular grains with 0.2 mm of mean diameter and is con-
sidered homogeneous with minor bedding and occasional
thin seams of mica. Rock blocks for HF tests were obtained
from the area where rock formation is relatively homoge-
neous and uniform. Some important mechanical properties
of the rock were measured and are listed in Table 1.
3. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP AND PROCEDURE
We carried out experimental hydrofracturing tests in thick
walled, hollow cylinders of Tablerock sandstone with a hole
diameter of 1.3 cm, an external diameter of 10.2 cm and a
length of 13 cm (Fig. la). Specimens were placed in a tri-
axial pressure chamber and subjected to predetermined con-
fining pressure Pconf (representing uniform horizontal stress
σh), vertical load (simulating vertical far-field stress σv) and

Table 1. Physical and mechanical properties of the Tablerock sandstone tested.

Porosity Permeability Uniaxial Brazilian Tangential Poisson’s Biot
Compressive Tensile Young’s ratio parameter
strength strength Modulus
(%) (Darcy) (MPa) (MPa) (GPa) ν α
26.0±0.9 0.12 42.0±1.0 4.4±0.22 15.3 0.2 0.71

Fig. 1. (a) Prepared specimen for hydrofracturing test and (b) schematic of experimental setup.
 A laboratory study of hydraulic fracturing breakdown pressure in tablerock sandstone 265

uniform fluid pressure through pore spaces (pretending for-

mation pore pressure Po). Fluid pressure for pore spaces
was applied through the saw-cut slots (1 mm width and 3
mm depth) every 20o in axial direction on the outer surface
of the hollow cylinder (Fig. la). Control of pore pressure at
the outer radius of specimen allowed the radial fluid flow
when the wellbore was pressurized. Borehole fluid (viscos-
ity: 2.5 Pa s at 20oC) which was the same as the pore fluid
was injected at a constant flow rate until a peak pressure
was reached. Fluid injection was stopped as soon as bore-
hole pressure ceased to increase. Pressure cycles were repeated
several times. A four-channel servo-control system enabled
the continuous control the pressures applied (σh, σv and Po)
and the borehole injection-fluid flow rate (Fig. 1b). A com-
mercial software and a personal computer equipped with Fig. 3. Detail of a section of the hydrofracture, showing the tortu-
ous path of the fracture due to different grain-bond strengths (see
digitatl-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters were employed white arrow heads).
for test control and data acquisition. The entire loading pro-
cess and borehole pressurization were automated including
injection halting upon hydraulic fracturing and pressure decline. ractures developed along grain boundaries (Fig. 2). The
intergranular crack propagation is so dependent upon grain-
4. APPEARANCE OF HYDROFRACTURES bond strength that often hydrofractures develop a tortuous
path that strays considerably from a straight plane (Fig. 3).
The pressurization of wellbore always resulted in the
development of vertical to subvertical brittle tensile frac- 5. ANALYSIS OF PRESSURE-TIME CURVES
tures, confirming that conventional hydrofracing in highly
porous sandstone is feasible as long as appropriate fluids A typical pressure-time record is shown in Figure 4. The
and flow rates are used. SEM analysis revealed that hydrof- fluid injection with a constant flow rate brought about
increasing in wellbore pressure and eventually peak pres-
sures in all four cycles. Acoustic emission activities that
appeared around each peak representing rock fracturing or
fracture reopening. In those tests peak pressures of subse-
quent cycles are typically lower than that of the first one. As
soon as the wellbore pressure reaches a peak, fluid injecting
halted and the wellbore pressures rapidly decayed due to
Fig. 2. Micrograph showing one complete branch of an intergran- high permeation and equalized to the initial pore pressure
ular hydrofracture propagating along grain boundaries. Wellbore is that was controlled at the outer surface of hollow cylinder.
located in the left side. For the more detailed view of fracture-inducing and frac-

Fig. 4. Typical borehole pressure-time

and flowrate-time test record.
266 Insun Song, Mancheol Suh, Kyoung Sik Won and Bezalel Haimson
Fig. 5. (a) The ascending segment of the first pressure cycle super-
imposed on that of a subsequent cycle showing the similar non-lin-
earity of the two curves. Note that acoustic emission activities
precede the peak pressures. (b) Replotting of the ascending seg-
ment of the pressure-time curves in the form of dP/dt as a function
of P, and the selection of the breakdown pressure Pc and reopening
pressure Pr as the respective inflection points.
ture-reopening pressure-time curves, the ascending portion
of the first pressure cycle is superimposed on that of a sub-
sequent cycle (Fig. 5a). The figure shows that the slope of
each cycle is identical in the beginning stages of pressur-
ization as expected if the flow rate is maintained constant
from cycle to cycle (Haimson, 1980; Zoback et al., 1980),
and if the fracture closes completely between cycles (Lee
and Haimson, 1989). The peak pressure Pp of the first cycle
is typically taken as the breakdown pressure. The point
where the slope of the subsequent pressurization deviates
from that of the first cycle is commonly taken as equal to
the reopening pressure Pr (Hickman and Zoback, 1983; Lee
and Haimson, 1989). The hydrofracturing tensile strength as
obtained from Thfp−r = Pp−Pr (Haimson, 1980) varies between
9.1~35.5 MPa (average; 23.2±7.33 MPa), obviously too high
for such a sandstone (refer to Table 1 for mechanical prop-
erties). This result probably comes from the overestimated
breakdown pressure as equitable with the peak pressure
rather than from the underestimated reopening pressure.
The technique of reopening pressure determination is quite
logical and consistent (Hickman and Zoback, 1983; Lee and
Haimson, 1989). In addition, in many cases acoustic emis-
sion activities preceded the peak pressure as shown in Fig
5a. This result also implies that the peak pressure of the first
cycle is a post event appearing after fracture initiation.
The ascending portion of the pressure-time curve is clearly
non-linear (Fig. 5a), showing deceleration of the pressure
increase with time (Fig. 5b). This is reasonable because
wellbore fluid would leak through pore spaces to specimen
outer surface where the fluid pressure was maintained as
equal as the initial pore pressure Po. According to Darcy’s
law, the outflow from the hole to the outer surface is lin-
early proportional to the pressure difference if the perme-
ability is constant. As outflow increases while the inflow is
constant, a gradual decline of wellbore pressurization incre-
ment (dP/dt) takes place due to the loss of borehole fluid,
which linearly increases with the wellbore pressure P.
Eventually the injection fluid flow and outgoing flow will
be in equilibrium, and then dP/dt approaches 0, i.e. P sta-
bilizes at a certain level if breakdown does not occur as
shown in Figure 6. In a test where the flow rate was too low
to pressurize the wellbore until hydrofracing, the fluid flow
became in steady state condition as P approaches a certain
level (Fig. 6a). Figure 6b shows that the dP/dt linearly
decreases all the way to 0. Note that the dP/dt is a linear
function of P as far as the specimen is intact.
In Figure 5b, however, at a point the pressure rate devi-
ates from the linear approximation, and becomes even
faster slow down. That is the point where we believe that
the permeability suddenly changes due to the tensile frac-
turing. We call the deviation point Pc (Fig. 5b), and refer to
it as the ‘apparent breakdown pressure’. Obtaining Pc directly
from a pressure-time curve such as Figure 5a is often dif-
ficult. Rather we were able to determine the Pc from plots
representing the experimental data in the form of dP/dt as
a function of P such as Figure 5b. The apparent breakdown
pressure determined from this technique often coincides with
the beginning of acoustic emission activity. This method
works not only for obtaining Pc but also for determining Pr.
As shown in Figure 5, in most cases Pr obtained from the
deviation point in the pressure-time record closely coincide
with the value read from the deviation point from the linear
approximation of the subsequent cycles in dP/dt versus P
domain. Thus this technique could be used for back up data
or sometimes yield better results. Now we recalculate hydrau-
lic tensile strength Thfc−r from the difference between Pc and
Pr. These values vary from 3.7 through 11.0 MPa and aver-
 A laboratory study of hydraulic fracturing breakdown pressure in tablerock sandstone
Fig. 6. (a) A pressure cycle in which the rock specimen was not
hydrofractured. (b) Replotting of the ascending segment of the
pressure-time curves in the form of dP/dt as a function of P show-
ing that dP/dt is approximated with a linear function all the way to
the peak pressure.
age 8.0±2.33 MPa. These values are much more reasonable
for hydrofracturing tensile strength than those calculated
from Thfp−r = Pp−Pr (average: 23.2 MPa). Secondly, Thfp−r is
not only too high but also linearly increases with the pres-
surization rate dP/dt (Fig. 7). The tensile strength is a mate-
rial property that does not change so much with loading
condition. On the other hand, Thfc−r is more convincing as a
tensile strength because it is much more constant (Fig. 7).
6. RESULTS FROM UNJACKETED HYDROFRAC-
TURING TESTS
Two series of HF tests were conducted on unjacketed
specimens, where fluid was free to move radially in and out
of the hollow cylinders so that during test the initial pore
pressure Po was equal to the confining pressure (Po= Pcon  to obtain the effective stress on tensile failure. Thus this
267
Fig. 7. Hydraulic fracture tensile strength Thf computed based on
two different assumptions. Open circles were calculated from the
difference between the peak pressure (Pp) and the fracture reopen-
ing pressure (Pr) showing linear function with dP/dt, and the other
one based Pc−Pr is independent of dP/dt.
σh) at the outer surface. In one series, fluid was injected at
different pressurization rate (dP/dt), resulting from different
flow rate, from test to test, while all specimens used were
subjected to the same level of confining/pore pressure at 20
MPa. In the other series, the injection flow rate was the
same at 5 m3/sec in all tests yielding the same dP/dt ( ≅ 15
 20 MPa/sec at breakdown) but in each test different con-
fining/pore pressures, 0 through 30 MPa, were applied. The
former series was aimed to determine the pressurization rate
effect on breakdown pressure Pc. The latter was to examine
the pore pressure effect on rock stress. If the effective stress
is given by Terzaghi’s law (equation 4), Pc−Po should be
constant because the effective confining stress (σh−Po)
becomes zero. The reason that we used unjacketed speci-
mens was that the boundary condition was so clear at the
outer surface of hollow cylinder.
The former series of HF tests revealed that Pc−Po increased
significantly with the wellbore pressurization rate dP/dt
(Fig. 8a). This behavior suggests that classical HF criteria
(Hubbert and Willis, 1957; Haimson and Fairhurst, 1967)
were unsuitable for Tablerock sandstone since they disre-
gard the effect of dP/dt. In the second series of HF tests
conducted in unjacketed specimens, where a preset pressur-
ization rate was used, Pc−Po appeared to linearly increase
with confining/pore pressure (Fig. 8b), contrary to the con-
stant values predicted by both classical elastic and poroelas-
tic criteria. In both criteria, Pc−Po should be constant irrespective
of the magnitude of confining/pore pressure because σh=Po
in unjacketed specimens (see equations 1 and 2). This is
because we used Terzaghi’s effective stress law (equation 4)
268 Insun Song, Mancheol Suh, Kyoung Sik Won and Bezalel Haimson
Fig. 8. (a) Hydrofracturing test results under identical sigma_h
(=Po) but different flow rates in unjacketed specimens. (b) Hydrof-
racturing test results under a constant flow rate but various σh
(=Po) in unjacketed specimens.
contrast implies that the Terzaghi’s effective stress law is
not suitable for tensile failure in Tablerock sandstone.
7. A NEW HYDROFRACTURING CRITERION
Conventional elastic and poroelastic models for hydraulic
fracturing employed continuum mechanics and the maxi-
mum tensile stress theory; a tensile fracture initiates at the
location of the greatest local tensile stress and propagate
perpendicular to its orientation once the material strength is
exceeded. Neither elasticity nor poroelasticity describes
time and size effects on rock behavior. However, those effects
have been repeatedly reported in laboratory experiments
including current our results from unjacketed tests. These
ambiguities arising in the classical hydrofracturing theories
are from the assumption that breakdown is characterized by
the failure of elastic regime at wellbore wall (Detournay
and Carbonell, 1994). Several theoretical attempts were
made to interpret some of these problems by introducing
fracture mechanics (Whitney and Nuismer, 1974; Abou-
Sayed et al., 1978; Ito and Hayashi, 1991; Detournay and
Carbonell, 1994).
The natural presence of miniature cracks in rocks has
long been considered as an origin of fracture propagation
since the works of Inglis (1913) and Griffith (1921). A basic
assumption is that hydraulic fracturing will initiate when
the stress intensity factor KI at a microcrack tip at wellbore
wall reaches the material toughness KIc (Abou-Sayed et al.,
1978; Rummel and Winter, 1982; Detournay and Carbonell,
1994). KI is partly dependent upon the pore pressure within
the cracks, which is a function of the wellbore pressuriza-
tion rate dP/dt. As shown in Figure 3, however, there is no
crack tip because pores between grains are all inter-con-
nected. Instead of employing fracture mechanics, Detour-
nay and Cheng (1992) introduced a lengthscale around the
wellbore to propose a model that breakdown takes place
when the average effective hoop stress over the lengthscale
reaches the critical value Thf. In their approach, the average
effective stress was considered to induce a tensile failure
initiation. Pore pressure distribution over the length given
by diffusion equation is also dependent upon the wellbore
pressurization rate. The Detournay and Cheng (D−C) HF
criterion is expressed as:
T hf + 3σ h – σ H – 2P o
P c – P o = ----------------------------------------------
- (5)
1 + ( 1 – 2η )h ( γ )
where γ is a dimensionless pressurization rate given by:
2
Aλ
γ = --------- 0≤γ≤∞ (6)
4cS
where A, λ and c are borehole pressurization rate, microc-
rack lengthscale and diffusivity coefficient, respectively, and
S is a stress quantity equal to the numerator of D−C crite-
rion: S =Thf+3σh−σH−2Po. h(γ) is derived from diffusion
equation representing pore pressure distribution in the vicin-
ity of wellbore. Figure 9a shows an example of function
h(γ), where η=0.27. As shown in the figure, h(γ) varies

between 0 for γ= ; the fast limit of wellbore pressurization
rate, and 1 for γ=0; the slow limit, so that equation 5 degen-
erates to either the H−W or the H−F criteria corresponding
respectively to the fast and slow limits of the pressurization
regimes. The D−C model implies that the condition of ten-
sile failure initiation depends strongly on the wellbore pres-
surization rate rather than on impermeable or permeable
rocks (Fig. 9b). The theoretical breakdown pressure curve as
a function of γ is coincident with the variation of measured
values shown in Figure 8a (Song and Haimson, 2001).
We still have a problem to explain the influence of pore
 A laboratory study of hydraulic fracturing breakdown pressure in tablerock sandstone
Fig. 9. (a) Function h(γ) derived from diffusion equation where η
is 0.27. (b) The Detounay and Cheng hydrofracturing model as a
function of γ when the stress condition is given.
pressure. According to equation 5, Pc−Po should be con-
stant for unjacketed tests regardless the magnitude of con-
fining/pore pressure once if h(γ) is given. However, our
result shows that Pc−Po linearly increases with the confin-
ing/pore pressure (Fig. 8b). This discrepancy comes from
the employment of Terzaghi’s effective stress law in the D−
C theory. We considered a more general effective stress law
for tensile failure as proposed by Schmitt and Zoback (1989):
σ ij = σij – δij βP o (0≤β≤1)
eff
(7)
where β is an effective stress parameter depending on rock
type. We modified D−C HF criterion based on an assump-
tion that a breakdown occurs when the effective stress gov-
erned by the generalized effective stress law (equation 7)
269
equals the HF tensile strength. The modified D−C hydraulic
fracturing model is expressed as:
T hf + 3σ h – σ H – ( 1 + β )P o
P c – P o = -----------------------------------------------------------
- (8)
1 + ( β – 2η )h ( γ )
For HF tests in unjacketed hollow cylinder, equation 8
will be:
T hf + ( 1 – β )σ h
P c – P o = -------------------------------------- (9)
1 + ( β – 2η )h ( γ )
Comparing this equation with the linear approximation of
experimental data (Fig. 8b) yields:
Thf (1 – β)
-------------------------------------- = 11.77, --------------------------------------- = 0.242 (10)
1 + ( β – 2η )h ( γ ) 1 + ( β + 2η )h ( γ )
We determined independently η and h(γ) from equation 3
and Figure 8a based on correspondent dP/dt, respectively;
η=0.27 and h(γ)=0.82. Plugging these values in equations
10, Thf and β come to 13.5 MPa and 0.72, respectively.
The effective stress coefficient β could be estimated from
a series of hydrofracturing tests in unjacketed specimens as
shown above or in jacketed specimens without pore pres-
sure (Schmitt and Zoback, 1989). We believe that the effec-
tive stress hypothesis for tensile failure of equation 8 should
be true not only in hydraulic fracturing but also in any other
conditions. One of the suggested methods to determine β
may be Bridgman-type pinch-off tests in which uniform
confining pressures were applied over the central section of
the unjacketed rock cylinders with or without axial loads on
the ends (Jaeger, 1963; Jaeger and Cook, 1963). They found
that in a series of tests significantly higher confining/pore
pressures than ones calculated by the Terzaghi effective law
were necessary for tensile failure. Other source that β may
be less than unity in some case is provided by pore pressure
induced failure experiments on sandstone.
8. RESULTS FROM JACKETED HYDROFRACTUR-
ING TESTS
We conducted several series of hydrofracturing tests in
jacketed specimens. The uniform far-fie1d horizontal stress
applied was kept in the range of 15−45 MPa; the pore pres-
sure was between 1−20 MPa; wellbore pressurization rate
was between 10 and 60 MPa/sec. First we plotted all exper-
imental data in the domain of [Pc−Po] versus [σh−Po] employ-
ing the D−C criterion (Fig. l0a). In the figure data are scattered
vertically for the given effective confining stress (σh−Po).
On the other hand, in the plot of [Pc−Po] versus [2 σh−(1+β)Po],
where β=0.72 (as determined from the unjacketed tests),
they fit rather well a linear relationship (Fig. 10b). The slope
of the linear approximation of experimental data in Figure
9b yields h(γ)=0.75 when η=0.27 (from equation 3) and Thf
=8.0±2.3 (MPa) for Tablerock sandstone.
270 Insun Song, Mancheol Suh, Kyoung Sik Won and Bezalel Haimson
Fig. 10. Compilation of all test result in jacketed specimens plotted
(a) as Pc−Po versus σh−Po where the Terzaghi’s effective stress
law was applied, and (b) as Pc−Po versus 2 σh−(1+β)Po where β=
0.72.
9. CONCLUSIONS
We carried out laboratory hydraulic fracturing tests in
hollow cylinders of Tablerock sandstone for the purpose of
establishing a correct relationship between the breakdown
pressure and the far-filed stress in high porosity sandstones.
Based on a series of tests in which we examined wellbore
pressurization rate effect on breakdown pressure, the Detour-
nay-Cheng (1992) hydrofracturing criterion was deemed as
uniquely suitable because it implicitly incorporates that
effect. However, another series of tests in which the con-
fining/pore pressure was varied from test to test for a given
pressurization rate revealed that the D−C criterion requires
a modification in order to appropriately interpret our hydro-
fracturing test results. Incorporating a general effective
stress law into the D−C criterion, we were able to correctly
describe the relationship between breakdown pressure and
the far-field stress in high-porosity Tablerock sandstone.
Our results are of significance in the petroleum industry, since
many reservoirs are found in high-porosity sandstones, and
knowledge of the in situ stress conditions gained from
hydrofracturing tests is essential to borehole stability and oil
field design.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: This work is supported by tile Geo-
sciences Research Program, Office of Basic Energy Research, U.S.
Department of Energy Grant DE-FGO2-98ER14850.
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Manuscript received May 9, 2001
Manuscript accepted July 10, 2001