Publications related to Laboratory and in situ simulation tests of the Excavation Damaged Zone around galleries in Opalinus Clay

Thermo-hydro-mechanical behaviour of the Callovo-Oxfordian claystone under thermal changes

Underground storage of radioactive waste is consensually recognised as the safest storage solution by European and worldwide countries relying mainly or partially on nuclear energy production. Over twenty years of research led by the French national agency ...

EPFL2024

A FEM modelling workflow to simulate THM effects in the rock around nuclear waste packages

Matthias Timothee Stanislas Wojnarowicz

High-level waste, stemming from nuclear electricity generation poses significant environmental and safety concerns. Currently, high-level wastes are stored in interim facilities needing constant monitoring and waiting for a definitive solution. Deep geolog ...

EPFL2024

Elongated hydraulic fracture emerging from layers of alternating fracture toughness

Brice Tanguy Alphonse Lecampion, Carlo Peruzzo

Whether used to enhance the hydrocarbon production from low permeability rocks or to measure the minimum in-situ principal stress in rock formations, height growth of a hydraulic fracture above the formation of interest is a key metric for the design of su ...

2023

Experimental and Numerical Investigation on Water Exchange of Opalinus Clay Samples

Alessio Ferrari, Qazim Llabjani, Eleni Stavropoulou, Vincenzo Sergio Vespo

Opalinus Clay is a fine-grained sedimentary geomaterial with a mineral composition consisting mainly of silicates, carbonates and quartz. Due to its favourable barrier properties, this geomaterial has been selected as the host rock for the underground disp ...

Wei Wu, Universität für Bodenkultur2023

Hydro-Mechanical Characterization of a Shale by Unusually High-Pressure Oedometric Tests

Alessio Ferrari, Eleonora Crisci

The note presents selected results of an experimental campaign conducted with the aim to investigate the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a shale recovered at a depth of about 900 m below the ground. High-pressure oedometric tests were performed to investigat ...

Wei Wu, Universität für Bodenkultur2023

A Discussion on the Reliability of prEN1992-1-1:2021 Shear Strength Provisions for Fibre Reinforced Concrete Members Without Shear Reinforcement

Miguel Fernández Ruiz

The Eurocode 2 for the design of concrete structures (EN1992-1-1:2004) is undergoing a revision that will lead to the publication of the second generation of this code to be used across all CEN member countries. Therefore, the impact of the code will reach ...

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2023

Three-dimensional hydraulic fracture propagation in homogeneous and heterogeneous media

Carlo Peruzzo

Hydraulic fractures are tensile fractures that occur in solid materials due to the natural intrusion or anthropogenic injection of a viscous fluid into a fracture channel. The deliberate creation of hydraulic fractures is part of an industrial technology h ...

EPFL2023

Physical characterization of fault rocks within the Opalinus Clay formation

Luis Felipe Orellana Espinoza, Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Christophe Nussbaum

Near-surface disposal of radioactive waste in shales is a promising option to safeguard the population and environment. However, natural faults intersecting these geological formations can potentially affect the long-term isolation of the repositories. Thi ...

Nature Research2022

Experimental investigation of hydraulic fracture growth in an anisotropic rock with pre-existing discontinuities under different propagation regimes

Brice Tanguy Alphonse Lecampion, Seyyedmaalek Momeni, Guanyi Lu

Laboratory experiments have been carried out to investigate the growth of hydraulic fracture (HF) in an anisotropic rock with pre-existing discontinuities such as bedding planes and veins. The experiments are designed in light of scaling relationships that ...

2022

A Data-Knowledge Hybrid Driven Method for Gas Turbine Gas Path Diagnosis

Dimitrios Kyritsis, Jinzhi Lu, Xiaochen Zheng, Jinwei Chen

Gas path fault diagnosis of a gas turbine is a complex task involving field data analysis and knowledge-based reasoning. In this paper, a data-knowledge hybrid driven method for gas path fault diagnosis is proposed by integrating a physical model-based gas ...

MDPI2022

Effect of the mineralogical composition on the elastoplastic hydromechanical response of Opalinus Clay shale

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Eleonora Crisci

Opalinus Clay is the shale currently under investigation as the host formation for geological radioactive waste disposal in Switzerland. Its hydromechanical response has been widely studied, and the experimental results show a range of values whose dispers ...

2021

Growth and viability of microorganisms in bentonite and their potential activity in deep geological repository environments

Niels Burzan

Radioactive waste is among the most dangerous anthropogenic waste and its safe disposal is a challenging multi-generational task. Many nations have sought for the peaceful application of nuclear fission for the reliable production of electric energy to pow ...

EPFL2021

Studies on the mechanical evolution of compacted bentonite subjected to environmental actions

Jose Antonio Bosch Llufriu

Deep geological disposal is currently the most feasible option for the long-term isolation of radioactive waste, consisting in emplacing the waste into tunnels or drifts excavated at great depths in suitable geological formations. The use of bentonite, a h ...

EPFL2021

Shear Response of Wet Weak Carbonate Rock/Grout Interfaces Under Cyclic Loading

Eleni Stavropoulou

The development and construction of offshore wind farms requires the correct estimation of the friction that can be mobilised at the rock/grout interface. In conventional studies, the shear behaviour of a joint is usually investigated with laboratory tests ...

2021

The shear strength of Opalinus Clay shale in the remoulded state

Alessio Ferrari

The Opalinus Clay shale formation is considered as a potential host geomaterial for the Swiss deep geological repository for radioactive waste. It presents different facies and it is characterised by a multi-scale heterogeneous composition, by a typical fi ...

2020

Propagation of fluid driven fractures in transversely isotropic material

Fatima-Ezzahra Moukhtari

The propagation of fluid driven fractures is used in a number of industrial applications (well stimulation of unconventional reservoirs, development of deep geothermal systems) but also occurs naturally (magmatic dyke intrusion). While the mechanics of hyd ...

EPFL2020

Bentonite clay barriers in nuclear waste repositories

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Jose Antonio Bosch Llufriu

Deep disposal of high-level radioactive waste is the preferred solution worldwide for the long-term disposal of nuclear waste. This concept involves a series of geological and engineered barriers that provide isolation of the waste from the biosphere. Most ...

EDP SCIENCES2020

Fault's hydraulic diffusivity enhancement during injection induced fault reactivation: application of pore pressure diffusion inversions to laboratory injection experiments

François Xavier Thibault Passelègue

In situ observations of fluid induced fault slip reactivation, as well as the analysis of induced seismicity have demonstrated the complexity of fluid-fault interactions under geological conditions. If fluid flow commonly reactivates faults in the form of ...

OXFORD UNIV PRESS2020

Hydraulic Transport Through Calcite Bearing Faults With Customized Roughness: Effects of Normal and Shear Loading

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Mateo Alejandro Acosta

Understanding fluid flow in rough fractures is of high importance to large scale geologic processes and to most anthropogenic geo‐energy activities. Here we conducted fluid transport experiments on Carrara marble fractures with a novel customized surface t ...

2020

A new data set of granitic rock strength values from Yosemite Valley, California: applications to rock fall assessment

To explore connections between rock strength and rock falls, we undertook a comprehensive rock mechanics testing program for six granitic rock types in Yosemite Valley (California, USA) where rock falls are a common geomorphic and sometimes hazardous proce ...

2020