ARMA 11-366

A shaly look at brittleness

Holt, R. M.
NTNU and SINTEF Petroleum Research, Trondheim, Norway
Fjær, E1. and Nes, O.-M.
SINTEF Petroleum Research, Trondheim, Norway (1also at NTNU, present affiliation PUC, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)
Alassi, H.T.
SINTEF Petroleum Research, Trondheim, Norway

Copyright 2011 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 45th US Rock Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in San Francisco, CA, June 26–29,
2011.
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ABSTRACT: Brittleness is considered a key parameter for hydraulic fracturing initiation and propagation in low permeability rock,
like gas shale. Plasticity, which in general increases with reduced brittleness, plays an important role in assessment of the mud weight
window for borehole stability during drilling in shale. There is no unique definition of brittleness, rather a variety of index parameters
that can be obtained from laboratory or field data, and which do not necessarily represent a coherent picture. This is digested here by
analysis of rock mechanical test data mainly on high porosity, high clay content North Sea shale. Brittleness, defined by the amount of
linear strain as part of the total strain before failure, and as the stress drop relative to peak stress after failure, was found to decrease
with increasing stress level (as expected). Brittleness was also found to decrease with increasing temperature and with exposure to
brine containing KCl. Experiments furthermore demonstrate that pore pressure evolution contributes strongly to undrained plasticity,
whereas the drained shale response is largely brittle. In practical field situations, one needs to address the situation closely to find
which definition of brittleness that is the most appropriate.

1. INTRODUCTION
Brittleness is a common term used to describe how rocks
fail. The brittle regime is characterized by a stress drop
when the rock is deformed after failure (beyond peak
stress). It is well-known that most rocks deform in a
brittle manner at low confining stresses, and become
ductile above a certain stress level. Brittleness is thus
detrimental to ductility (plasticity), which implies that
the material can be deformed with non-declining or even
increasing ability to carry load. Brittleness during
compression is often associated with dilatancy, while
rocks compact volumetrically when they are in the
ductile regime.
Brittle vs. plastic behavior has a profound influence on
borehole stability during drilling in shale, and thus on
how the mud weight program should be designed for
wells to facilitate efficient and safe drilling. It also
impacts fracturing behavior in shales, be it during
reinjection of e.g. cuttings in shale intervals, or when
enabling gas production from gas shales where
additional fracturing is imperative to production.
These are applications that have motivated the study
presented here. Hence, our focus is on shale, which is
often defined on basis of clay mineral content, or on
grain size, or on fissility. Shale is a common cap rock,
but also a common source rock. In oilfield language,
terminology is sometimes sloppy, describing low
permeability formations as shales even if they strictly
should not be defined as such.
There is also no unique definition of a brittleness
parameter, as pointed out already more than 35 years ago
by Hucka and Das [1]. The aim of this paper is to
summarize practical indices of brittleness that exist,
derive some of them from laboratory data, discuss their
relevance, and see how they relate to the field
applications mentioned above.
2. BRITTLENESS PARAMETERS
Hucka and Das [1] listed a number of measurement
principles that could serve as brittleness indicators.
These were based on the conceptual understanding of
brittleness as associated with “rupture or fracture with
little or no plastic flow”, or as fracture formation
occurring at or only slightly beyond the yield stress.
Below is listed a few suggested brittleness indices,
starting with a definition which relates brittleness to
elastic (reversible) strain (εel) normalized by total strain
at failure (εtot= εel+εpl), where εpl is plastic strain at In the field of geotechnical engineering, a definition
failure (as illustrated in Figure 1): based on the residual strength was introduced by Bishop
[2]:
ε el
B1 = (1) τ max − τ res
ε tot B5 =
τ max
The Figure implies that the transition from elasticity to (5)
plasticity is associated with a deviation from linearity. In Here τmax and τres are peak and residual shear strengths,
principle unload – reload cycles should be performed to respectively (see also Figure 1). Hajiabdolmajid and
identify the transition. Kaiser [3] suggested a strain dependent brittleness
parameter

εel εpl ε p −ε p
τmax B6 = f c

εp c
(6)

where ε f and ε cp represent plastic shear strain at failure

p
Stress

τres and at some specific strain level beyond failure,

respectively, and hence accounts for the details of post-
failure behavior, like the rate of strength reduction after
peak stress. All the brittleness indices defined so far
have in common that their values approach 1 in case of
perfect brittleness and 0 in case of pure plastic behavior.
Strain Another soil mechanics based brittleness index has been
introduced as an appropriate measure for shales and
Figure 1: A generic stress vs. strain curve demonstrating mudrocks [4]:
how brittleness parameters B1 and B5 can be estimated.
B7 = OCR b (7)
A related definition of brittleness is the elastic
(reversible) energy (Wel) divided by the total mechanical Here OCR is the overconsolidation ratio, defined as the
energy at failure (Wtot) [1] maximum previously experienced vertical effective
stress σ v,max
'
divided by the present effective vertical
Wel
B2 = (2)
stress σ v' :
Wtot
Observations indicated that the ratio between unconfined σ v,max
'

compressive strength (C0) and tensile strength (T0) OCR = . (8)

increases with brittleness. A possible index parameter
σ v'
was defined as [1] The exponent b has been set to 0.89, a value which was
C0 − T0 chosen such that seal leakage would be likely for values
B3 = (3) of B7 > 2 [5]. A correlation between previous maximum
C0 + T0 stress and unconfined strength was suggested, implying
Other observations suggested that brittleness may be that laboratory measured strength and knowledge of
present in situ vertical effective stress is sufficient to
associated with high friction angle (ϕ), and a brittleness
estimate their brittleness index B7 [5]:
parameter was defined as [1]
B4 = sin ϕ , (4) σ v,max
'
[ MPa ] = 8.6C0 [ MPa ]0.55 (9)

measured from the failure envelope at zero normal
stress.
Other brittleness parameters were based on impact and
indentation tests. Although the various techniques gave
widely different numbers, the data presented by Hucka
and Das showed mutual consistency when the brittleness
indices of two different rocks were compared [1].
All these definitions require laboratory tests with rock
cores. B7 may however be estimated from log data, if an
appropriate correlation between rock strength and log
parameters can be found. Based on experiments with
North Sea shales, Horsrud found the following empirical
relationship between unconfined strength and P-wave
velocity [6]:
C0 [ MPa ] = 0.77v P [km / s ]2.93 (10)
 Rickman et al. [7] argue that the brittleness concept
should combine Poisson’s ratio, which they claim reflect
the rock’s ability to fail, and Young’s modulus, which
represents its ability to maintain a fracture. They suggest
an empirically based brittleness index, which increases
with increasing Young’s modulus and decreases with
decreasing Poisson’s ratio. They used the dynamic
Poisson’s ratio derived from P- and S-wave log data, and
used an empirical correlation to obtain a value for the
static Young’s modulus [7]. Their brittleness index may
be written
1 Edyn [ Mpsi ] (0.8 − φ ) − 1 ν dyn − 0.4
=B8 ( + ) ⋅100
2 8 −1 0.15 − 0.4
The dynamic Young’s modulus (Edyn) and Poisson’s
ratio (νdyn) are well-known functions of P- and S-wave
velocities (or slownesses, when derived from log data)
[8, 9]. The way B7 and B8 are defined, they do not
normalize to 1 (or 100%) in case of perfect brittleness.
It is quite clear that the brittleness parameters B1 – B8
defined above will give different values for a given rock,
in line with the observations of Hacka and Das [1]. We
do not know to what extent they will show equal trends
amongst different rocks, and the availability of data
limits the possibilities to answer this question in full. For
instance, definitions B1 and B2 in principle require that a
core sample is loaded and unloaded prior to failure,
which is very rarely (if ever) done in otherwise time-
consuming shale tests. Definitions B3 and B4 require
multiple core tests, which also is a limiting factor.
Definitions B5 and B6 require characterization of post-
failure behavior, which depends on stiffness and control
of the loading machine. Using servo-controlled
hydraulic load frames operating in strain rate control,
reliable data may be obtained, but may not be
comparable to similar data obtained in another
laboratory. Definition B8 and to some extent B7 are
attractive because they can be derived from log data and
do not require core testing. However, these parameters
need to be considered at best to be indirect indicators of
brittleness.
Fundamentally, brittleness is stress dependent, with a
transition from brittle to ductile behavior occurring at
sufficiently high stress. This means that tests at several
confining pressures are necessary for a complete
characterization. Also, shale is anisotropic, often with a
pronounced plane of weakness. Thus, brittleness is also
likely to be directionally dependent. Below we will
include these aspects when evaluating brittleness from
internal data collected throughout 25 years of shale
testing.
An essential question for practical use of brittleness is to
identify a representative definition for the field situation
in question. This is a difficult question, but through
controlled laboratory experiments and numerical
simulations one may investigate the role of brittleness
and obtain practical guidelines.
3. BRITTLENESS FROM LABORATORY
DATA
3.1 Effect of confining pressure
As stated in the Introduction, rocks are commonly found
(11)
to be brittle at low confining pressures, with a transition
to ductile behavior as the confinement is increased. In
order to quantify this in terms of brittleness parameters
defined in the previous Section, we have digested stress
vs. strain curves from a selection of Consolidated
Undrained (CU) triaxial tests performed in our
laboratory. The tested shales were mainly from the
overburden above North Sea petroleum reservoirs. The
clay contents and the porosities of these shales (see
Table 1) are typical for drilling problem wells, but are
higher than for common commercial gas shales. For
example, Barnett shale has porosities in the range 3–
10% and clay contents around 20-25%, while Woodford
shale has 15-25% porosity and 20– 40% clay [10]. We
believe, however, that the methodology used and the
results shown are of relevance also for gas shale
applications, and hope to be able to extend this analysis
to such cores.
Table 1: Geological age, depth, porosity (from water
content) and clay content (from XRD analysis) for the
shales used in the current study.
Shale Age Depth Porosity Clay
[m] [%] content [%]
H Tertiary 1900 28-46 30-85
S Cretaceous 2200 21 47
W Tertiary 2160 28 44
F Upper Jurassic 2630 10 75
Q Tertiary 1870 34 56
P Cretaceous - 19-26 40-60
The effect of confining pressure is demonstrated in
Figure 2 and Figure 3, where B1 and B5, respectively,
are plotted vs. confining stress for 3 different shales. “H”
denotes a Tertiary shale from ~1900 m depth that shows
significant heterogeneity, with porosity ranging from 28
to 46 %, and clay content varying from 30 to 85 %. “S”
Shale is from the Cretaceous at approximately 2200 m
depth, and has 21 % porosity and 47 % clay (no
smectite). “W” Shale is Tertiary from 2160 m depth and
has 28 % porosity and 44 % clay.
 1 some cases no stress drop occurred after the peak stress
0,8
Brittleness Index B1 [-]
0,6
0,4
0,2
0
0 5
Effective confining stress [MPa]
Figure 2: Brittleness index B1 vs. effective confining stress
at failure from triaxial tests with 3 different North Sea
shales, named H, S and W shale (see Table 1).
0,6
Brittleness Index B5 [-]
0,4
0,2
0
0 5
Effective Confining Stress [MPa]
Figure 3: Brittleness index B5 vs. effective confining stress
at failure from triaxial tests with 3 different North Sea
shales, named H, S and W shale (see Table 1).
B1 was obtained by analysis of the behavior during
undrained loading. No unloading was performed. The
stress - strain curves were fitted to a function mimicking
the curve shapes seen in triaxial tests, with B1 as a fitting
parameter [11]. This means that the data are essentially
analyzed for nonlinearity and not explicitly for deviation
from elastic behavior. Both axial stress vs. axial strain,
net axial stress (= axial stress minus pore pressure) vs.
axial strain and differential stress (= axial – confining
stress) vs. differential strain (=axial minus radial strain)
were analyzed. The difference between the applied
methods resulted for this data set in variations between
brittleness estimates typically less than 0.1, and has no
major impact on the trend seen in Figure 2. As
expected, B1 decreases with increasing stress.
A similar trend is seen in Figure 3. Here the differential
stress was used in the definition of B5, Eq. (5). One
should notice however that the values for B5 are different
(in general lower) than for B1. Also, the figures show
that the H Shale, which was most brittle according to
parameter B1, was the least brittle according to B5. In
had been reached.
In addition to uncertainties in determining the brittleness
index from the tests, this scatter also indicates that the
two parameters measure different aspects of the rock
behavior: B1 describes how plasticity evolves (or does
H shale
not evolve) prior to rock failure, whereas B5 is associated
S shale with post failure behavior. One should therefore not
W shale
expect them to be equal, nor even strongly correlated.
10 15
Both figures demonstrate however that stress sensitivity
is significant, and any brittleness measurement therefore
needs to refer to the stress conditions under which it was
obtained. It means that brittleness parameters like B3 and
B4 are not really meaningful in a practical context. B8
should in principle represent brittleness under the
conditions where wave velocities are measured.
However, since wave speeds increase with increasing
stress, and P-wave velocity normally increases faster
than S-wave velocity, one would expect B8 to increase
rather than decrease with increasing stress. This was
validated for an Upper Jurassic (“F”) shale from
~2630 m depth, having 10 % porosity and 75 % clay
content, where a sample was loaded hydrostatically in
H Shale the laboratory and ultrasonic P- and S-wave velocities
S shale
were measured. The result shown in Figure 4 confirms
W shale
that B8 increases with stress. This does not imply that B8
10 15 may not be used to distinguish between brittleness of
different shales under in the same stress field. Notice
that the value of B8 across the Barnett shale varies
between 20 and 55 [7]; i.e. Barnett shale is as expected a
lot more brittle than the clay rich F shale studied here.
Unfortunately reliable S-wave data were not available in
the old test data analysed here, so a wider comparison
between field and shale core data could not be performed
at this stage.
20
Brittleness Index B8 [%]
19
18
17
16
15
0 5 10 15 20 25
Effective Confining Stress [MPa]
Figure 4: Brittleness index B8 vs. effective confining stress
based on ultrasonic measurements during hydrostatic
loading of a North Sea (F) shale (see Table 1).
It is concluded that the stress conditions in the field need
to be specified in order to assess in situ brittleness from
laboratory data. Techniques that permit determination of
a brittleness index under in situ conditions (such as B7
and B8) may prove useful, but within the limits of the
current work such an analysis was not feasible.
3.2 Fluid exposure and temperature effects
The tests analyzed in the preceding paragraph were all
performed at room temperature (~ 20°C). In order to see
the effect of temperature on strength and on brittleness,
one shale (Tertiary, from 1870 m depth; 34 % porosity,
56 % clay content, largely smectite and kaolinite; named
“Q” shale) was tested both at room temperature and
80°C. The confining pressure was kept at 7 MPa,
whereas the initial pore pressure in the triaxial,
undrained segment was 2 MPa. The shale sample was
preserved after coring and not exposed to any non-native
fluids during storage or preparation. In the test, loading
and application of a pore pressure was meant to create
conditions as close to full saturation as possible.
Figure 5: Axial stress (bold) and pore pressure vs. axial
strain for 3 tests on a North Sea (Q) shale (see Table 1),
illustrating the effects of temperature and fluid exposure.
As shown in Figure 5, the temperature increase caused
a slight strength reduction and a reduction in brittleness:
B1 (the ratio of elastic to total strain at failure) dropped
from ~0.8 to ~0.6 while B5 (the normalized difference
between peak and residual strength) dropped from 0.3 to
0.2). A third sample from the same shale was exposed to
5 weight % KCl brine during testing (at 80 °C). KCl is a
commonly used additive to drilling fluids, and as can be
seen from the Figure, a main effect is to enhance
plasticity (for further analysis, see [12]). B1 was reduced
to 0.2, while B5 was almost unaffected and remained
close to 0.2. Physically, the effect of KCl is largely
caused by ionic exchange, with an associated shrinkage
of the shale framework, allowing for larger strain prior
to failure.
3.3 Experiments with Pierre Shale: Effect of
shale anisotropy
To illustrate the effect of mechanical anisotropy, Figure
6 shows the resulting total axial stress vs. axial strain for
Pierre outcrop (“P”; see Table 1) shale drilled
perpendicular to bedding. As seen, the undrained test
displays a pronounced curvature. The estimated value
for B1 is approximately 0.4, while B5 is significantly
lower, being equal to 0.1. On the other hand, the drained
test is more linear, thus appearing more brittle in terms
of both B1, which is now 0.9, and B5 which equals 0.5.
Note that a comparable result is obtained for B1 using an
effective stress equation similar to what will be
described in § 3.4, while B5 is not sensitive to whether
net or total stresses are used when calculating shear
stress from the test data.
On samples drilled parallel to bedding, the estimated
values for B1 and B5 are 0.5 and 0.3, respectively, for the
undrained test. Using the drained test, however, gives B1
equal to 0.8 and B5 equal to 0.4. Note that with B1the
difference between samples drilled parallel and
perpendicular to bedding is less than for B5.. Both
parameters are however generally quite sensitive to
whether drained or undrained test results are employed.
The anisotropy effect seen from these data is modest.
Data from samples at oblique orientations to the bedding
should be explored before drawing firm conclusions.
3.4 Drained vs. undrained brittleness
The experimental data indicate that the undrained pore
pressure response plays an important role in controlling
brittle vs. plastic behavior of shale. By comparing stress
vs. strain curves plotted in different ways, as mentioned
in § 3.1, one would expect that pore pressure effects
would cancel when differential stress or effective stress
change is plotted instead of total axial stress.
50
45
40
35
Total axial Stress [MPa]
30
25
20 Drained test
15 Undrained test
10
5
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Axial strain [millistrain]
Figure 6: Triaxial phase of undrained and drained triaxial
test on Pierre outcrop shale drilled perpendicular to
bedding.

One complicating factor here is anisotropy. Shales are
always anisotropic, because of alignment of clay
minerals and lamination on the grain scale. Using the
formalism of anisotropic elasticity, the drained response
can be derived from the undrained response according to
an effective stress ∆σ z =∆σ z − S ∆p f , where the
*
coefficient S depends on Biot’s α and on the elastic
anisotropy. S may be estimated from the undrained data,
provided the pore pressure response is measured, and
that the drained stiffness is constant throughout a
significant part of the loading. Figure 7 shows this
inversion from data on Pierre Shale loaded normal to
bedding. The upper curve is the measured differential
stress vs. differential strain curve, while the lower curve
is the computed drained response. It is intriguing that the
drained curve appears to show almost perfect brittleness.
Similar results have been obtained from other shale tests
as well. If generally valid, this implies that the pore
pressure response is a major source of undrained plastic
behavior.
Figure 7: Stress-strain curves from an undrained uniaxial
compression test on Pierre Shale. Upper curve: Measured
differential stress versus differential strain. Lower curve:
Estimated axial stress versus axial strain if the test were
run under drained conditions.
4. IMPACT OF BRITTLENESS ON BOREHOLE
STABILITY
In the presence of a borehole, differential stresses
increase in the vicinity of the borehole wall. For a linear
elastic material, these stresses are at their maximum at
the borehole wall. If the mud weight is too low to
support the borehole, shear failure may be induced at the
borehole wall, potentially leading to borehole collapse.
However, since shales are generally plastic, i.e. lacking
some amount of brittleness, the stresses at the borehole
wall will to various degrees be shielded near the
borehole wall. This may in its turn significantly increase
the stability of the borehole, potentially having profound
influence on the applied mud weight, and whether a well
is drillable or not.
A number of poro-elasto-plastic models exist, taking into
account the effect of plasticity to various degrees. Such
models typically require numerous input parameters,
making them cumbersome to use in practice due to
limited amounts of consistent input data. We have made
a borehole stability model for shales, which takes into
account plasticity in a sufficiently simplified manner to
allow for more easy calibration of the model [13]. In
addition to input of conventional elastic and rock
strength parameters, dedicated borehole geometry
(hollow cylinder) laboratory tests are performed on
shales in our rock mechanical laboratory to specifically
calibrate for plasticity effects. In cases where laboratory
data are absent, plasticity parameters are estimated from
in-house models generated from available laboratory
data on a number of shales.
To illustrate the effect of plasticity on borehole stability,
Figure 8 shows the predicted stable mud weight
window (MWW) for a vertical well penetrating a field
shale when plasticity is excluded. The minimum
required mud weight to assure borehole stability is 1.61
s.g. (about 32.5 MPa at the given depth) soon after
drilling when an oil based mud is employed. Figure 9
shows the corresponding widened, stable MWW when
plasticity as determined from laboratory hollow cylinder
tests is included. In this case, the minimum required mud
weight is 1.51 s.g. (about 30.4 MPa). In case of a
horizontal well, the stable MWW will narrow
significantly in a normal stress regime, in particular
when plasticity is excluded. This is illustrated in Figure
10 and Figure 11 for the same field shale. Without
plasticity, the stable MWW has almost vanished, and the
lower limit (1.89 s.g.) even exceeds the minimum
horizontal stress, potentially fracturing the well. Thus,
the horizontal well may be difficult to drill in practice if
judged from the linear elastic model only. On the other
hand, when plasticity is included, Figure 11 shows that
the stable MWW is wider, and with the lower stable mud
weight (1.80 s.g.), now being less than the minimum
horizontal stress.
Figure 8: Modeled stable mud weight window (probability
of failure) for a vertical well penetrating a field shale when
plasticity is excluded. The red and pink curves denote
shear and tensile failure, respectively, while the vertical
blue and grey lines are the corresponding pore pressure
and minimum horizontal stress.
Figure 9: Modeled stable mud weight window (probability
of failure) for a vertical well penetrating a field shale when
plasticity is included. The red and pink curves denote
shear and tensile failure, respectively, while the vertical
blue and grey lines are the corresponding pore pressure
and minimum horizontal stress.
Figure 10: Modeled stable mud weight window
(probability of failure) for a horizontal well penetrating a
field shale when plasticity is excluded. The red and pink
curves denote shear and tensile failure, respectively, while
the vertical blue and grey lines are the corresponding pore
pressure and minimum horizontal stress.
Figure 11: Modeled stable mud weight window
(probability of failure) for a horizontal well penetrating a
field shale when plasticity is included. The red and pink
curves denote shear and tensile failure, respectively, while
the vertical blue and grey lines are the corresponding pore
pressure and minimum horizontal stress.
5. IMPACT OF BRITTLENESS ON FRACTURE
INITIATION AND PROPAGATION
We have performed a numerical simulation using an in-
house modified version of the discrete element method
(DEM) to model fracture development during fluid
injection. The advantage of this technique is that it can
behave as a continuum model before failure (like the
finite element method, FEM) and as a discrete model
after failure and thus model fracture propagation easily
[14]. The transition between the continuum state and the
fracture state for each cluster (triangular element in 2D)
is defined at specific effective plastic strain, where each
contact inside the cluster that is opened (based on a pre-
defined gap definition) is declared as a fracture, and the
forces and the stiffness for this contact are removed.
A simple 2-by-2 meters model was constructed with an
initial horizontal crack at the middle of the models as
shown in Figure 12. Water is injected into the middle of
the fracture with a flow rate of 4 liters per time step. We
modelled two cases using the brittleness definition in Eq.
(1): i) completely brittle material, and ii) almost
perfectly plastic material.
Because we are modeling shale, the permeability of the
fractures is assumed very high in comparison to the
shale matrix permeability, so that the fluid flow is
dominant inside the fractures. Figure 13 shows the
pressure build-up inside the initial fracture as a function
of time step. Notice the much higher pressure increase
for the plastic case prior to fracture initiation than for the
brittle case. Further, the pressure drop (after reaching
failure) in the plastic case appears smoother than in the
brittle case. Obviously the results for varying degree of
brittleness would fall between the two extremes shown
here, and the result of varying degree of brittleness
would be less dramatic than it appears from the figure. A
main purpose here is to demonstrate the potential of the
current computational approach.
 Figure 14: Fractures propagation and pressure increase
after 40 time steps for the brittle case.

Figure 12: The shale model with initial crack used to

generate fracture after water injection at the middle of the
crack.

Figure 15: Fractures propagation and pressure increase

after 100 time steps for the brittle case.

Figure 13: Pressure build-up as a function of time step for

the two cases, brittle and plastic. Notice how the pressure
increase for the plastic case is higher than the brittle one.

The fracture development for the two cases at two

different time steps is shown in Figure 14 to Figure 17.
To conclude, it took more time steps (and thus injection
of a larger fluid volume) and higher injection pressure to
create a full fracture for the plastic case than for the
brittle one. This is intuitively reasonable, as plasticity
shields the stresses needed at the fracture tip to facilitate Figure 16: Fractures propagation, pressure increase, and
propagation. As such, this addresses the importance of plastic strain after 100 time steps for the plastic case.
brittleness (and plasticity) when designing fracturing
programs for e.g. shale gas or cuttings injection.

Figure 17: Fractures propagation and pressure increase
after 200 time steps for the plastic case.
6. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Rock mechanical laboratory data on shale cores from the
North Sea have been used to address various definitions
of brittleness. Brittleness defined through lack of plastic
yielding (or more precisely, lack of non-linear
deformation with stress) prior to failure is shown to be
different from brittleness defined as the post-failure
stress drop, which is reasonable from a physical
viewpoint. Both these definitions do however give
decreasing brittleness with increasing confining stress.
We have found that plasticity in undrained shale tests is
linked to pore pressure evolution, and that drained
response (using the parameter B1 as a descriptor of
brittleness) is much more brittle than undrained.
Furthermore, brittleness appears to be anisotropic, and
sensitive to exposure fluids.
Notice that the experimental work forming the basis for
our conclusions has been performed with mainly
overburden shale, having high clay contents. They are
not likely to be representative for currently produced gas
shales, except that they have very low permeabilities.
More experimental work on representative samples is
needed to see to what extent the current conclusions
remain also for less clay rich shales.
We have seen from modeling examples that plasticity
has a very profound influence on borehole collapse
during drilling. One effect of KCl additives to drilling
fluids is to increase the plasticity of the shale being
drilled through. We have also seen discrete element
modeling results that show how the fracturing pressure
and the necessary injection volumes are expected to be
higher in a plastic compared to a brittle formation.
In practical field applications, one needs to address the
situation closely to find which definition of brittleness
that appears most applicable. The response during
drilling is undrained initially, and then gradually changes
towards drained as pore pressure equilibrium is
established, typically in the course of days. The response
during fracture initiation is undrained in a low-
permeability formation like shale. During fracture
propagation, the conditions depend on permeability plus
saturation and wettability of the formation.
In order to assess brittleness in field, indices like B7 and
B8 are obviously attractive, because they can be
determined on basis of normally acquirable data. There
is however no verification that these would be
representative measures of the relevant brittleness
needed for a particular field operation. Further work
should include a systematic comparison between either
of these parameters and brittleness from laboratory data,
possible under near in situ stress conditions. Also,
development of improved correlations between field data
and brittleness, possibly in combination with techniques
that can utilize small samples or drill cuttings which are
easily available, should be attempted.
As a main conclusion, improved understanding of the
origin of plasticity and brittleness in shale is a key to
improved control of shale stability and failure in drilling
and fracturing operations.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge a number of oil
companies for support to various industry projects on
shale behavior at SINTEF (previously IKU) throughout
the last 25 years. In particular, we acknowledge the
permission granted by Statoil to show recent data on
Pierre outcrop shale. A thorough review and constructive
comments by Daniel Moos are appreciated, and helped
us to improve the quality of the paper.
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