The effects of three-dimensional bedding on shale fracture behavior: Insights from experimental and numerical investigations

Abstract

The three-dimensional (3D) structural characteristics of the bedding planes exhibit strong anisotropy in the fracture behavior of shale. Previous studies on the anisotropy of shale fracture characteristics focused on 2D bedding effects, while 3D bedding effects that comprehensively consider bedding angles α and β have been rarely investigated. Therefore, the fracture behavior of shale with 3D bedding planes was studied based on laboratory experiments and numerical simulation. The results indicated that the apparent fracture toughness (AFT) of shale decreased with increasing bedding angle α. The fracture toughness of shale with a bedding angle of α = 0° was 2.26 MPa·m0.5 (β = 0°). However, when the loading angle α increased to 90°, the AFT decreased by 67.70 %. The increase in bedding angle β could improve the AFT significantly, and the higher the loading angle α, the more significant the improvement. The improvement amplitude at α = 90° reached 156.65 %. Due to the enhanced ability of shale to resist crack propagation by the bedding angle β, the trend of dissipation energy under the influence of 3D bedding effects was consistent with the AFT, and the two were positively correlated. Affected by the 3D bedding effect, three typical failure modes of shale have been observed: bedding failure, matrix failure, and mixed failure mode. Based on the calculation of the fractal dimension of the fracture surface, the roughness of the fracture surface under different failure modes was mixed failure > matrix failure > bedding failure. In addition, a 3D numerical model was established based on the DEM method, and the influence of new cracks on fracture toughness was considered after verifying the effectiveness of the numerical model. The length of newly formed cracks at the tip of shale prefabricated cracks exceeded 4.0 mm under critical load. Ignoring the length of new cracks will underestimate the fracture toughness of shale by about 30 %. Finally, the influence of 3D bedding planes on the crack propagation path was discussed.