Ph.D. student from OU Reservoir Geomechanics Group Honored with Rock Mechanics Research Award from American Rock Mechanics Association (ARMA)
Ph.D. candidate Zhi Ye from OU Reservoir Geomechanics & Seismicity Research Group received the American Rock Mechanics Association’s (ARMA) prestigious “Rock Mechanics Research Award” at the Annual Meeting held last June in Brooklyn, New York. The award was given for the paper:
Ye, Z., & Ghassemi, A. (2018a). Injection-Induced Shear Slip and Permeability Enhancement in Granite Fractures. Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, 123(10), 9009-9032. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018JB016045.
The Rock Mechanics Research Award recognizes original contribution that advances the theoretical or fundamental aspects of rock mechanics and rock engineering. The paper demonstrated, for the first time, the role of shear slip and dilation in permeability generation during reservoir stimulation under realistic triaxial stress and boundary conditions at pressures below the minimum in-situ stress. The group has carried out tests on shales with similar results so that the work has major implications for both unconventional reservoir stimulation and crustal permeability dynamics and seismicity.