Role of pore fluids in time-dependent deformation and microcracking of rock under high deviatoric stress

Rock underground may be exposed to elevated deviatoric stress over prolonged time period resulting in time-dependent deformation and microcracking. This process of subcritical time-dependent deformation is sensitive to environmental conditions, such as applied state of stress, presence and chemical composition of pore fluids, and drainage conditions. To improve the understanding of processes occurring at subcritical stress, the laboratory brittle creep experiments are conducted on Berea sandstone specimens under various conditions. Strong correlation between time-dependent deformation and microcracking activity is observed in all conducted tests. Significant variation of magnitude-frequency relation of the acoustic emission signals occurs during macroscopic failure preparation, which can serve as a potential prognostic feature. The collected data on time-dependent deformation is interpreted by introducing viscosity as a coefficient of proportionality between deviatoric strain rate and applied deviatoric stress. It appears that viscosity is exponentially decreasing when the state of stress is approaching critical conditions associated with macroscopic failure. Empirically-based relationship is established describing the impact of mean and deviatoric stress on viscosity in wide range of applied stress. The presence of non-aqueous fluids (oil or CO₂) appears to have significantly weaker impact on the creep deformation compared to aqueous fluids (deionized water and water with dissolved CO₂). Finally, the drainage condition appears to be essential. If the mass of pore fluid inside the specimen remains constant throughout the experiment (undrained condition), the microcracking results in phenomena similar to dilatant hardening of the material observed at constant applied state of stress. This effect might be qualitatively similar to the ones occurring in the off-fault plasticity zones and provide the fault stabilization mechanism.