Publications related to Hydro-mechanical behaviour of shallow Opalinus Clay shale

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

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

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

Héloïse Manon Fuselier

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

Adolescent Stress-Induced Ventral Hippocampus Redox Dysregulation Underlies Behavioral Deficits and Excitatory/Inhibitory Imbalance Related to Schizophrenia

Maria del Carmen Sandi Perez, Dogukan Hazar Ülgen, Thamyris Silva

Background and hypothesis: Redox dysregulation has been proposed as a convergent point of childhood trauma and the emergence of psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia (SCZ). A critical region particularly vulnerable to environmental insults during ad ...

2024

Pore-pressure coefficients for unsaturated soils: generalized effective stress approach

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Angelica Tuttolomondo

Geotechnical problems with total stress changes occurring rapidly relative to the soil consolidation time can be conveniently addressed using an effective stress-based approach. For saturated states, analytical formulations of pore-pressure coefficients ad ...

CANADIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING2023

Thermo-hydro-mechanical analysis of the complete lifetime of the bentonite barrier in the FEBEX in-situ test

Lyesse Laloui, Alessio Ferrari, Yafei Qiao, Jose Antonio Bosch Llufriu

The FEBEX test was a large-scale demonstration project for the deep geological disposal concept of nuclear waste involving bentonite seals that lasted 18 years. One of the objectives of the test was to evaluate the capabilities of numerical methods to prov ...

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

A fully-coupled highly-parallelized geomechanical simulator for assessing induced seismicity

Jean-François Molinari, Guillaume Anciaux, Nicolas Richart, Brice Tanguy Alphonse Lecampion, Emil Gallyamov

Induced seismicity caused by anthropogenic modification of the subsurface effective stress state has been observed in a number of industrial applications -- from hydrocarbon extraction (e.g., Groningen [1]), drilling waste-water disposal (e.g., [2]) to the ...

2023

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

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

Drained Clay-Pipe Interface Resistance at Low Normal Stresses and Elevated Temperatures

Roba Houhou

Offshore pipelines that transport hydrocarbons under high pressure and high temperature are usually thermally insulated to maintain an elevated temperature and prevent any heat loss to the surroundings. However, the temperatures at the outer-wall of the pi ...

AMER SOC CIVIL ENGINEERS2023

Unsupervised Electrofacies Clustering Based on Parameterization of Petrophysical Properties: A Dynamic Programming Approach

François Fleuret, Karthigan Sinnathamby

Electrofacies using well logs play a vital role in reservoir characterization. Often, they are sorted into clusters according to the self-similarity of input logs and do not capture the known underlying physical process. In this paper, we propose an unsupe ...

SOC PETROPHYSICISTS & WELL LOG ANALYSTS-SPWLA2023

Single-Well Pore Pressure Preconditioning for Enhanced Geothermal System Stimulation

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Barnaby Padraig Fryer, Mathias Alexandre David Lebihain

The stress state is an important parameter in terms of both earthquake nucleation and rupture. Here, a new stimulation technique is proposed for Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGSs), which have previously been burdened with a number of high-profile incidence ...

2023

Role of Stress History on the Swelling-Shrinkage Behavior of Compacted Scaly Clay

Alessio Ferrari

Compacted scaly clays are complex geomaterials widely used for the realization of dam cores and waste dump liners. This research aims to investigate the swelling/shrinkage behavior of these geomaterials subjected in an oedometric cell to complex hydromecha ...

ASCE-AMER SOC CIVIL ENGINEERS2022

The effect of pore microstructure on strength and chloride ingress in blended cement based on low kaolin clay

Karen Scrivener, Diana Londoño Zuluaga

The objective of this study is to analyse the mechanical and durability properties of a high-performance mortars based on low grade kaolin clay and the effect of electrical conductivity and pore microstructure on the chloride penetration resistance. A tota ...

ELSEVIER2022

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

Oxidation of pyrite (FeS2) and troilite (FeS) impurities in kaolinitic clays after calcination

Karen Scrivener, Franco Alberto Zunino Sommariva

Valorisation of locally available clays for producing blended cements is crucial for a widespread adoption of sustainable binders incorporating these materials. In some places, clays can be intermixed with small amounts of iron sulfides, which could eventu ...

SPRINGER2022

Stress effects on the impedance and ferroelectricity of PVDF-BiFeO3-MWCNT films using xanthan gum as dispersant

Frank Nüesch, Francis Owusu

Composite films based on dispersions of bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) in polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) matrixes were prepared in the presence of multiwalled-carbon-nanotubes (MWCNT), using xanthan gum (XG) as dispersant. Films were prepared by spin coating and ...

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA2022

Clay calcination technology: state-of-the-art review by the RILEM TC 282-CCL

Mohsen Ben Haha, Karen Scrivener, Shashank Bishnoi, François Henri Avet, Adrian Alujas Diaz, Franco Alberto Zunino Sommariva, Anuj Parashar, Alastair Thomas Matthew Marsh

The use of calcined clays as supplementary cementitious materials provides the opportunity to significantly reduce the cement industry's carbon burden; however, use at a global scale requires a deep understanding of the extraction and processing of the cla ...

SPRINGER2022

Drained Axial Pipe-Soil Resistance at Low Confinement Using Tilt Table and Direct Shear Tests

Roba Houhou

Establishing a reliable value for the axial pipe-soil interface resistance is critical for the design of offshore pipelines. Over the last few years, several independent research groups have modified existing methodologies or devised new testing setups to ...

ASCE-AMER SOC CIVIL ENGINEERS2022

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