Filtering by Subject: Materials Science and Engineering
Published: 2022-04-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Materials Science and Engineering
In continuum mechanics, viscous materials are those that lack rigidity and elastic response under shear stress. We argue that using the term viscous to refer to the aseismic lithosphere is thus a misnomer, as it denies the propagation of S-waves through the lithosphere in total contradiction to decades of seismic surveys. Likewise, viscous materials lack yield stress, which is another feature [...]
Published: 2022-03-24
Subjects: Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Materials Science and Engineering, Mineral Physics, Mining Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
The KEM-17 project of the Dutch State Supervision of Mines presented a critical review of concepts of cavern abandonment and related science. It recommended that analyses of cavern abandonment are done as an integrated project, addressing (i) micro-scale physical processes, (ii) cavern scale models based on field scale experiments and numerical models, (iii) the salt dome scale, to model the far [...]
Published: 2021-09-25
Subjects: Condensed Matter Physics, Geophysics and Seismology, Materials Science and Engineering, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Mineral Physics
This paper presents a strategy for consistently extending isotropic equations of state to model anisotropic materials over a wide range of pressures and temperatures under nearly hydrostatic conditions. The method can be applied to materials of arbitrary symmetry. The paper provides expressions for the deformation gradient tensor, the lattice parameters, the isothermal elastic compliance tensor [...]
Published: 2021-06-17
Subjects: Chemical Engineering, Complex Fluids, Earth Sciences, Fluid Dynamics, Hydrology, Materials Science and Engineering, Other Materials Science and Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, Transport Phenomena
Multiphase flow is important for many natural and engineered processes in subsurface geoscience. Pore-scale multiphase flow dynamics are commonly characterized by an average balance of driving forces. However, significant local variability in this balance may exist inside natural, heterogeneous porous materials, such as rocks and soils. Here, we investigate multiphase flow in heterogeneous rocks [...]
Published: 2021-05-13
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Computational Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Materials Science and Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Damage models have been successfully employed for many decades in the modelling of tensile failure, where the crack surfaces separate as a crack grows. The advantage of this approach is that crack trajectories can be computed simply and efficiently on a fixed finite element mesh without explicit tracking. The development of damage models for shear failure in compression, where the crack faces [...]
Published: 2020-10-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering Science and Materials, Geophysics and Seismology, Materials Science and Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Joint electrical-elastic rock physics modelling can be instrumental in lowering uncertainty in subsurface reservoir characterisation. Typical electrical-elastic cross-property models, however, are empirical or require an intermediate step of porosity estimation to link a rock's electrical and elastic moduli, which can be error-prone away from well controls. Another outstanding issue in [...]
Published: 2020-05-12
Subjects: Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Structural Materials
The design of any engineering structure requires the knowledge, and therefore determination, of the yield, i.e. limit of elasticity, for the building material. Whilst destructive experimental testing is currently necessary to do so, our work is part of initiatives which aim at deriving the yield without such laboratory experiments. The seminal work of Gurson (1977) on a simplified pore structure, [...]
Published: 2019-11-07
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering
In this note we present a theoretical study on the conditions for the onset of cracks, as well as the corresponding pattern formation, in saturated viscoplastic soils under isotropic loading (extension). The type of stress applied is left unspecified, to cover a variety of loadings including shrinkage due to dessication, isotropic thermal expansion, mechanical loading and so forth. By treating [...]
Published: 2019-08-23
Subjects: Chemical Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Complex Fluids, Dynamics and Dynamical Systems, Engineering, Engineering Science and Materials, Environmental Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Mechanics of Materials, Petroleum Engineering, Transport Phenomena
The displacement of a non-wetting fluid by a wetting fluid in porous media, called imbibition, is important in many natural and industrial processes. During imbibition, the wetting fluid invades the pore space through a series of competitions between piston-like displacement, film and corner flow, snap-off, pore bypassing and trapping. Our understanding of these fundamental pore-scale [...]
Published: 2019-05-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Other Materials Science and Engineering
Constitutive modelling in geotechnical engineering and applied earth sciences is facing the challenge of assessing the long-term potential of both man-made and natural geohazards. This involves designing engineering operations for length scales and timescales well beyond those observable in the laboratory. In order to bridge the gap between scales, study rock behaviours well beyond their yield [...]
Published: 2019-05-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Fluid flow through dense granular packs or soft sands can be described as a Darcy s flow for low injection rates, as the friction between grain-grain and grain-walls dominate the solid system behaviour. For high injection rates, fluid forces can generate grain displacement forming flow channels or ``fractures, which in turn modify local properties within the system, such as permeability and [...]