Validating the application of cyclic hydraulic pressure pulses to reduce breakdown pressure in granite

Kendrick, Jackie Evan and Lamur, Anthony and Mouli-Castillo, Julien and Lightbody, Alexander and Fraser-Harris, Andrew and Edlmann, Katriona and McDermott, Christopher Ian and Shipton, Zoe Kai (2024) Validating the application of cyclic hydraulic pressure pulses to reduce breakdown pressure in granite. iScience. ISSN 2589-0042 (In Press)

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Abstract

As the geoenergy sector moves towards more sustainable practices, an emerging field of research is the proposed utilisation of cyclic hydraulic pressure pulses to safely and efficiently enhance productivity. We demonstrate how cyclic hydraulic pressure pulses can reduce hydraulic breakdown pressure in granite using newly-developed experimental equipment, which applies pulsed square waves of fluid pressure to large bench-top samples, monitored with dynamic high-resolution fibre optic strain sensors. Our results show significant reduction in breakdown pressure can be achieved by cyclic pulsed pumping, and we explore the role of mean pressure and cyclic amplitude. Our results offer new insight into cyclic well stimulation treatments and show potential for reducing peak power consumption during geothermal exploitation.

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