Shear-enhanced compaction analysis of the Vaca Muerta formation
Abstract
Laboratory measurements on Vaca Muerta formation samples show stress-dependent elastic behavior and compaction at representative in-situ conditions. Experimental results show that the analyzed samples exhibit elasto-plastic deformation and shear-enhanced compaction as the main plasticity mechanism. These experimental observations conflict with the anticipated linear-elastic response prior to the brittle failure reported in several works on the geomechanical characterization of the Vaca Muerta formation. Therefore, we present a complete laboratory analysis of samples from the Vaca Muerta formation showing experimental evidence of nonlinear elastic and unrecoverable shear-enhanced compaction. We also calibrate an elastoplastic constitutive model using these experimental observations; the resulting model reproduces the observed phenomena adequately.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2308.15566,
title = {Shear-enhanced compaction analysis of the Vaca Muerta formation},
author = {José G. Hasbani and Evan M. C. Kias and Roberto Suarez-Rivera and Victor M. Calo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2308.15566},
year = {2023}
}