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At least 1,207 records · Page 67
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2021

Nonlinear two-fluid modeling of plasma response to RMPs for the ELM control in the ITER baseline

Numerical modeling, combining the toroidal ideal MHD code GPEC and the nonlinear two-fluid MHD code TM1, was used for comprehensive studies of the plasma response to resonant magnetic perturbations (RMPs) with toroidal mode number n = 1–5 for controlling edge-localized modes (ELMs) in ITER for the standard operation scenario (15 MA Q = 10). Several issues related to RMP ELM control are investigated, including the optimization of the RMP coils configuration, the evaluation of the magnitude of density pump-out and the q95 windows of ELM suppression. GPEC calculates the magnetic response, which consistently includes the very important edge kink/peeling response to static magnetic perturbations. Furthermore, GPEC two-dimensional scans of the relative coil current phasing among the three rows of internal coils, at fixed coil current amplitude, reveal the optimal phasing for the RMP coil configuration with n = 1–5, respectively. The poloidal half wavelength of resonant mode at the edge of plasma calculated by GPEC indicates that the midplane row coils have the best resonant coupling with the plasma for n = 2, while the upper and lower row coils have the best resonant coupling with the plasma for n = 3. Based on the plasma kinetic equilibrium and the GPEC calculations of the magnetic response, TM1 was used to simulate the conditions for RMP field penetration in the ITER pedestal. TM1 shows magnetic island formation at the foot of ITER pedestal with RMP coil current threshold ranging from 4 kAt to 8 kAt with n = 2 to 4. These magnetic islands at the pedestal-foot lead to density pump-out, the magnitude of which scales as ${I}_{\text{RMP}}^{0.5}$ and ranges from 5% to 20% at the pedestal-top when scanning the coil current from 4 to 60 kAt. The density pump-out is found to be weaker for higher n RMP. The nonlinear TM1 simulations also show field penetration at the pedestal-top, where the threshold of RMP coil current depends on the q 95 . The alignment of the magnetic island and the location of the pedestal-top decreases the height and width of the pedestal to suppress ELMs. Simulations by two-dimensional scans of RMP coil current and q 95 reveal the accessible q 95 windows of ELM suppression for both n = 3 and 4 RMPs. The predicted q 95 windows of ELM suppression are very similar to the ones in currently operating tokamaks and the required RMP coil current for ELM suppression is less than 40–50 kAt, which is well within the designed capability for ITER. In addition, the simulations indicate that wide q 95 windows of ELM suppression may be accessible in ITER by operating with dominant n = 4 (or n = 5) RMPs.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Isotopic mass effects of tritium-fueled high-performance TFTR supershots

An increase in total stored energy correlated with the addition of tritium fuel was observed in supershots during the TFTR DT campaign. This supershot regime had strikingly high, centrally peaked ion and electron temperatures, and the largest neutron emission rates observed in TFTR. This paper presents a study of the causes of this increase in stored energy in supershots. Twenty-six supershots have been recently reanalyzed with the TRANSP plasma analysis code. Early TRANSP simulations did not accurately match the measured magnitude and time evolutions of the neutron emission rates. This mismatch is attributed to neglecting apparent increases of trace amounts of heavy impurities during neutral beam injection. The new TRANSP runs were tuned to accommodate this and match the measured global neutron emission rates. These new runs also had improved fidelity in predicting the time histories and radial dependencies of measured DT neutron emission rates. That in turn adds confidence in the simulated thermal deuterium and tritium density profiles that are needed for calculating the average hydrogenic atomic mass profiles. Six subsets of these supershots had well matched toroidal field B tor , plasma current I p , flux geometry, and total injected neutral beam power. The mix of D and T beam ions was varied for different discharges. The magnitude of the increase of the thermal ion energy W i with added tritium was relatively small, and the total W tot increase is dominated by the increase in fast beam ions with T. Analyses at times before the occurrences of deleterious MHD instabilities yielded scaling of W tot with the volume-average isotopic mass consistent with previous publications. The relative fraction of fast energy ions is expected to be small in practical tokamak reactors. Thus the increase in stored energy W tot observed in TFTR supershots does not appear likely to be significantly helpful for producing useful fusion energy.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Power balance and divertor asymmetries in the Super-X divertors of MAST-U using SOLPS-ITER

Spherical tokamaks (STs) present unique challenges and opportunities in the area of particle and power exhaust, intensified due to their more compact sizes. Substantial efforts are underway in STs to determine the limits in dissipative operational regimes and advanced divertor solutions, including at MAST-U which provides access to the Super-X divertor configuration. Power balance, and upper/lower divertor asymmetries have been studied using SOLPS-ITER simulations of the MAST-U Super-X divertor. A set of simulations with experimentally inferred transport coefficients with E x B and diamagnetic drifts activated, consisting of density and power scans, and high field side vs low field side gas puff locations, have been used for code experimentation to uncover trends beyond the current experimental parameter space. The upper biased asymmetry (U:L > 1) of the ratio of the peaks of the plasma energy flux densities at the outer targets increases with heating power and decreases with gas puff strength, going from symmetric to up to a factor of 15. The upper target electron temperature has been found to be a good ordering quantity for the magnitude of this asymmetry for all heating powers, gas puff strength, and gas puff locations. The lower divertor biased asymmetry (U:L < 1) of the radiation patterns processed through SOLPS-based bolometry synthetic diagnostics is in qualitative agreement with resistive bolometry experimental results, and it is in quantitative agreement with the trend of the total volume radiation within the divertors of SOLPS. However, radiation measurements alone are not sufficient to infer the magnitude of the asymmetry of the peaks of the power loads at the targets.

MAST-U↗
DOE OSTI2025

Analysis of the linear and nonlinear stability of Alfven eigenmodes and fish-bones in JET DT discharges: mode identification and shear flows generation

The plasma in future nuclear fusion reactors will be heated by neutral beam injectors (NBIs) and high frequency electromagnetic waves as well as fusion born alpha particles. Energetic particles (EPs), with energies up to two orders of magnitude larger than the thermal plasma, can trigger EP driven modes and induce harmful EP losses, reducing the plasma heating efficiency and the economical viability of the reactor. The present study is dedicated to analyze the Alfven Eigenmode (AE) activity in JET D–T discharges, the closest experiment to reactor-like operation performed until now. There, EP driven modes are induced by the combined effect of tangential NBIs and ion cyclotron resonance heating (ICRH) driven EP. Linear and nonlinear simulations are performed with the gyro-fluid FAR3d code to analyze the AE activity observed in the discharge 99896. The linear simulations reproduce the unstable n = 3 to 5 toroidal AEs (TAE) at the inner plasma region observed in the experiment, triggered by highly energetic passing deuterium populations injected by the tangential NBIs, further accelerated by the effect of the ICRH up to 1 MeV. In addition, fish-bones triggered by energetic trapped hydrogen induced by the ICRH are also reproduced. On the other hand, the alpha particles density is too small to destabilize AEs in the experiment. Nonetheless, increasing artificially the alpha density by one order of magnitude, an n = 1 beta induced AE can be destabilized in the inner plasma region. Nonlinear simulations indicate the generation of zonal structures during the AE/fish-bone saturation phase. TAE and fish-bones causes a rather weak increase of the passing D and trapped H EP (around 2%), respectively. Shear flows and zonal currents are generated during the saturation of TAE and fish-bones. Nonlinear simulations performed for D–T and pure deuterium thermal plasma indicate AE/fish-bone activity is weaker and shear flows are less intense in the pure deuterium case, trends consistent with the experimental observations that also indicates a deterioration of the thermal plasma confinement. Therefore, both numerical studies and experimental evidence indicate the generation of shear flows by AE/fish-bones could be connected with an improvement of the thermal plasma confinement.

AE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Wind Farm Wakes and Farm-to-Farm Interactions: Lidar and Wind Tunnel Tests

Recent experimental and numerical evidence has shown that the cumulative wake generated from the overlapping of multiple wakes within a wind farm could reduce power performance and enhance fatigue loads of wind turbines installed in neighboring downstream wind farms and may also extend up to distances one order of magnitude larger than those typically considered for intra-farm wake interactions. Similar to individual wind turbine wakes, wind farm wakes have a velocity deficit and added turbulence intensity, both affected by the turbine rotor thrust forces and the incoming turbulence intensity. Therefore, the evolution of wind farm wakes will vary for different operational and atmospheric conditions. In this paper, lidar measurements collected during the American WAKE experimeNt (AWAKEN) and wind tunnel tests of wind farms reproduced by porous disks are leveraged to investigate wind farm wakes.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2021

High-accuracy absolute magnetometry with application to the Fermilab Muon g-2 experiment

We present details of a high-accuracy absolute scalar magnetometer based on pulsed proton NMR. The B-field magnitude is determined from the precession frequency of proton spins in a cylindrical sample of water after accounting for field perturbations from probe materials, sample shape, and other corrections. Features of the design, testing procedures, and corrections necessary for qualification as an absolute scalar magnetometer are described. The device was tested at B = 1.45 T but can be modified for a range exceeding 1–3 T. The magnetometer was used to calibrate other NMR magnetometers and measure absolute magnetic field magnitudes to an accuracy of 19 parts per billion as part of a measurement of the muon magnetic moment anomaly at Fermilab.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2020

Evaluation of simulated soil carbon dynamics in Arctic-Boreal ecosystems

Given the magnitude of soil carbon stocks in northern ecosystems, and the vulnerability of these stocks to climate warming, land surface models must accurately represent soil carbon dynamics in these regions. We evaluate soil carbon stocks and turnover rates, and the relationship between soil carbon loss with soil temperature and moisture, from an ensemble of eleven global land surface models. We focus on the region of NASA's Arctic-Boreal vulnerability experiment (ABoVE) in North America to inform data collection and model development efforts. Models exhibit an order of magnitude difference in estimates of current total soil carbon stocks, generally under- or overestimating the size of current soil carbon stocks by greater than 50 PgC. We find that a model's soil carbon stock at steady-state in 1901 is the prime driver of its soil carbon stock a hundred years later—overwhelming the effect of environmental forcing factors like climate. The greatest divergence between modeled and observed soil carbon stocks is in regions dominated by peat and permafrost soils, suggesting that models are failing to capture the frozen soil carbon dynamics of permafrost regions. Using a set of functional benchmarks to test the simulated relationship of soil respiration to both soil temperature and moisture, we find that although models capture the observed shape of the soil moisture response of respiration, almost half of the models examined show temperature sensitivities, or Q10 values, that are half of observed. Significantly, models that perform better against observational constraints of respiration or carbon stock size do not necessarily perform well in terms of their functional response to key climatic factors like changing temperature. This suggests that models may be arriving at the right result, but for the wrong reason. The results of this work can help to bridge the gap between data and models by both pointing to the need to constrain initial carbon pool sizes, as well as highlighting the importance of incorporating functional benchmarks into ongoing, mechanistic modeling activities such as those included in ABoVE.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2020

Integrating environmental understanding into freshwater floatovoltaic deployment using an effects hierarchy and decision trees

Abstract In an era of looming land scarcity and environmental degradation, the development of low carbon energy systems without adverse impacts on land and land-based resources is a global challenge. ‘Floatovoltaic’ energy systems—comprising floating photovoltaic (PV) panels over water—are an appealing source of low carbon energy as they spare land for other uses and attain greater electricity outputs compared to land-based systems. However, to date little is understood of the impacts of floatovoltaics on the hosting water body. Anticipating changes to water body processes, properties and services owing to floatovoltaic deployment represents a critical knowledge gap that may result in poor societal choices and water body governance. Here, we developed a theoretically-derived hierarchical effects framework for the assessment of floatovoltaic impacts on freshwater water bodies, emphasising ecological interactions. We describe how the presence of floatovoltaic systems may dramatically alter the air-water interface, with subsequent implications for surface meteorology, air-water fluxes and physical, chemical and biological properties of the recipient water body. We apply knowledge from this framework to delineate three response typologies—‘ magnitude’ , those for which the direction and magnitude of effect can be predicted; ‘ direction’ , those for which only the direction of effect can be predicted; and ‘ uncertain’ , those for which the response cannot be predicted—characterised by the relative importance of levels in the effects hierarchy. Illustrative decision trees are developed for an example water body response within each typology, specifically, evaporative water loss, cyanobacterial biomass, and phosphorus release from bed sediments, and implications for ecosystem services, including climate regulation, are discussed. Finally, the potential to use the new understanding of likely ecosystem perturbations to direct floatovoltaic design innovations and identify future research priorities is outlined, showcasing how inter-sectoral collaboration and environmental science can inform and optimise this low carbon, land-sparing renewable energy for ecosystem gains.

Environmental Sciences & Ecology↗
DOE OSTI2020

Evaluating cross-sectoral impacts of climate change and adaptations on the energy-water nexus: a framework and California case study

Abstract Electricity and water systems are inextricably linked through water demands for energy generation, and through energy demands for using, moving, and treating water and wastewater. Climate change may stress these interdependencies, together referred to as the energy-water nexus, by reducing water availability for hydropower generation and by increasing irrigation and electricity demand for groundwater pumping, among other feedbacks. Further, many climate adaptation measures to augment water supplies—such as water recycling and desalination—are energy-intensive. However, water and electricity system climate vulnerabilities and adaptations are often studied in isolation, without considering how multiple interactive risks may compound. This paper reviews the fragmented literature and develops a generalized framework for understanding these implications of climate change on the energy-water nexus. We apply this framework in a case study to quantify end-century direct climate impacts on California’s water and electricity resources and estimate the magnitude of the indirect cross-sectoral feedback of electricity demand from various water adaptation strategies. Our results show that increased space cooling demand and decreased hydropower generation are the most significant direct climate change impacts on California’s electricity sector by end-century. In California’s water sector, climate change impacts directly on surface water availability exceed demand changes, but have considerable uncertainty, both in direction and magnitude. Additionally, we find that the energy demands of water sector climate adaptations could significantly affect California’s future electricity system needs. If the worst-case water shortage occurs under climate change, water-conserving adaptation measures can provide large energy savings co-benefits, but other energy-intensive water adaptations may double the direct impacts of climate change on the state’s electricity resource requirement. These results highlight the value of coordinated adaptation planning between the energy and water sectors to achieve mutually beneficial solutions for climate resilience.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2021

Short-term impacts of 2017 western North American wildfires on meteorology, the atmosphere’s energy budget, and premature mortality

Abstract Western North American fires have been increasing in magnitude and severity over the last few decades. The complex coupling of fires with the atmospheric energy budget and meteorology creates short-term feedbacks on regional weather altering the amount of pollution to which Americans are exposed. Using a combination of model simulations and observations, this study shows that the severe fires in the summer of 2017 increased atmospheric aerosol concentrations leading to a cooling of the air at the surface, reductions in sensible heat fluxes, and a lowering of the planetary boundary layer height over land. This combination of lower-boundary layer height and increased aerosol pollution from the fires reduces air quality. We estimate that from start of August to end of October 2017, ∼400 premature deaths occurred within the western US as a result of short-term exposure to elevated PM 2.5 from fire smoke. As North America confronts a warming climate with more fires the short-term climate and pollution impacts of increased fire activity should be assessed within policy aimed to minimize impacts of climate change on society.

Bernstein, Diana N. (ORCID:0000000308279336)↗
DOE OSTI2021

Strong influence of convective heat transfer efficiency on the cooling benefits of green roof irrigation

Abstract By enhancing evapotranspiration (ET), green roofs provide cooling benefits for the urban environment and are recognized as a promising heat mitigation strategy. The evaporative cooling effects of green roofs strongly depend on the soil moisture conditions and thus irrigation may be needed to sustain the cooling benefits. It has been shown that the magnitude of cooling benefits offered by green roof irrigation varies spatially, but its controlling factors remain elusive. In this study, we combine a surface energy balance (SEB) model with global simulations generated by an improved Earth System Model to illustrate the key factors controlling the cooling benefits of green roof irrigation. We employ a simple irrigation scheme, which is only active when there is no ice in soil layers and when the soil moisture is below field capacity. As a result, most of the irrigation water leaves the green roof system via ET. We find that the magnitude and also the spatial variability of the cooling benefits of green roof irrigation are controlled by the irrigation amount, and a surface energy redistribution factor that encodes the efficiencies of different SEB components in transferring heat. Further analysis indicates that the enhancement of latent heat flux due to irrigation is largely balanced by the reduction of sensible heat flux on green roofs. Therefore, the amount of irrigation needed per unit decrease of green roof surface temperature is mainly controlled by the convective heat transfer efficiency. A lower convective heat transfer efficiency (e.g. under a lower wind speed) helps reduce the amount of irrigation needed per unit decrease of green roof surface temperature. This study highlights the importance of SEB in constraining the cooling benefits of green roof irrigation and provides valuable guidance for urban planners and policy makers in terms of heat mitigation and sustainable water management.

Wang, Linying (ORCID:0000000308769220)↗
DOE OSTI2022

On the attribution of the impacts of extreme weather events to anthropogenic climate change

Investigations into the role of anthropogenic climate change in extreme weather events are now starting to extend into analysis of anthropogenic impacts on non-climate (e.g. socio-economic) systems. However, care needs to be taken when making this extension, because methodological choices regarding extreme weather attribution can become crucial when considering the events’ impacts. The fraction of attributable risk (FAR) method, useful in extreme weather attribution research, has a very specific interpretation concerning a class of events, and there is potential to misinterpret results from weather event analyses as being applicable to specific events and their impact outcomes. Using two case studies of meteorological extremes and their impacts, we argue that FAR is not generally appropriate when estimating the magnitude of the anthropogenic signal behind a specific impact. Attribution assessments on impacts should always be carried out in addition to assessment of the associated meteorological event, since it cannot be assumed that the anthropogenic signal behind the weather is equivalent to the signal behind the impact because of lags and nonlinearities in the processes through which the impact system reacts to weather. Whilst there are situations where employing FAR to understand the climate change signal behind a class of impacts is useful (e.g. ‘system breaking’ events), more useful results will generally be produced if attribution questions on specific impacts are reframed to focus on changes in the impact return value and magnitude across large samples of factual and counterfactual climate model and impact simulations. We advocate for constant interdisciplinary collaboration as essential for effective and robust impact attribution assessments.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2023

Exploring the environmental drivers of vegetation seasonality changes in the northern extratropical latitudes: a quantitative analysis *

Abstract Vegetation seasonality in the northern extratropical latitudes (NEL) has changed dramatically, but our understanding of how it responds to climate change (e.g. temperature, soil moisture, shortwave radiation) and human activities (e.g. elevated CO 2 concentration) remains insufficient. In this study, we used two remote-sensing-based leaf area index and factorial simulations from the TRENDY models to attribute the changes in the integrated vegetation seasonality index ( S ), which captures both the concentration and magnitude of vegetation growth throughout the year, to climate, CO 2 , and land use and land cover change (LULCC). We found that from 2003 to 2020, the enhanced average S in the NEL (MODIS: 0.0022 yr −1 , p < 0.05; GLOBMAP: 0.0018 yr −1 , p < 0.05; TRENDY S3 [i.e. the scenario considering both time-varying climate, CO 2 , and LULCC]: 0.0011 ± 7.5174 × 10 −4 yr −1 , p < 0.05) was primarily determined by the elevated CO 2 concentration (5.3 × 10 −4 ± 3.8 × 10 −4 yr −1 , p < 0.05) and secondly controlled by the combined climate change (4.6 × 10 −4 ± 6.6 × 10 −4 yr −1 , p > 0.1). Geographically, negative trends in the vegetation growth concentration were dominated by climate change (31.4%), while both climate change (47.9%) and CO 2 (31.9%) contributed to the enhanced magnitude of vegetation growth. Furthermore, around 60% of the study areas showed that simulated major climatic drivers of S variability exhibited the same dominant factor as observed in either the MODIS or GLOBMAP data. Our research emphasizes the crucial connection between environmental factors and vegetation seasonality, providing valuable insights for policymakers and land managers in developing sustainable ecosystem management strategies amidst a changing climate.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

Daytime cooling efficiencies of urban trees derived from land surface temperature are much higher than those for air temperature

Accurately capturing the impact of urban trees on temperature can help optimize urban heat mitigation strategies. Recently, there has been widespread use of remotely sensed land surface temperature (T s ) to quantify the cooling efficiency (CE) of urban trees. However, remotely sensed T s reflects emitted radiation from the surface of an object seen from the point of view of the thermal sensor, which is not a good proxy for the air temperature (T a ) perceived by humans. The extent to which the CEs derived from T s reflect the true experiences of urban residents is debatable. Therefore, this study systematically compared the T s -based CE (CE T s ) with the T a -based CE (CE T a ) in 392 European urban clusters. CE T s and CE T a were defined as the reductions in T s and T a , respectively, for every 1% increase in fractional tree cover (FTC). The results show that the increase in FTC has a substantial impact on reducing T s and T a in most cities during daytime. However, at night, the response of T s and T a to increased FTC appears to be much weaker and ambiguous. On average, for European cities, daytime CE T s reaches 0.075 °C % -1 , which is significantly higher (by an order of magnitude) than the corresponding CE T a of 0.006 °C % -1 . In contrast, the average nighttime CE T s and CE T a for European cities are similar, both approximating zero. Overall, urban trees can lower daytime temperatures, but the magnitude of their cooling effect is notably amplified when using remotely sensed T s estimates compared to in situ T a measurements, which is important to consider for accurately constraining public health benefits. Our findings provide critical insights into the realistic efficiencies of alleviating urban heat through tree planting.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Near-term heatwave risk in HighResMIP models across different temperature zones of West Africa

This study projects near-future (2031–2050) changes in heatwave (HW) risk across West Africa (WA) using an ensemble of eight high-resolution global climate models from the High-Resolution Model Intercomparison Project under a high-emission scenario. Using K-means clustering, we divided WA into four unique temperature zones and examined projected changes in extreme temperatures, HW occurrence and magnitude. Our results indicate a statistically significant increase in future HW events across most parts of WA, although considerable spread exists over the region and among individual models. The most pronounced increases are evident in the Sahel/Sahara and the Guinea Highlands subregions, with an ensemble mean increase of ∼10 HW events per year. In contrast, the lowest increase in HW events is projected in central WA, with increases ranging between 1 and 5 events per year. Similarly, the magnitude of HW events is projected to increase in most models, with Sahel/Sahara exhibiting the largest increases. Additionally, projections suggest that the strongest HWs will become more frequent, particularly in northern and southwestern WA. These findings highlight significant spatial heterogeneity in future HW risk across WA, emphasizing the need for targeted adaptation strategies.

HighResMIP↗
DOE OSTI2023

Improved Productivity with Multilaser Rotary Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing

Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) enables the fabrication of intricate, geometrically complex structures with a sufficiently fine surface finish for many engineering applications with a diversity of available feedstock metals. However, the production rate of LPBF systems is not well suited for mass production in comparison to traditional manufacturing methods. LPBF systems measure their deposition rates in 100's of grams per hour, while other processes measure in kilograms per hour or even in the case of processes such as forming, stamping, and casting, 100's of kilograms per hour. To be widely adopted in industry for mass production, LPBF requires a new scalable architecture that enables many orders of magnitude improvement in deposition rate, while maintaining the geometry freedom of additive manufacturing. This article explores concepts that could achieve as much as four orders of magnitude increase in the production rate through the application of (1) rotary table kinematic arrangements; (2) a dramatic number of simultaneously operating lasers; (3) reductions of laser optic size; (4) improved scanning techniques; and (5) an optimization of toroidal build plate size. To theoretically demonstrate the possibilities of production improvements, a productivity analysis is proposed for synchronous reluctance motors with relevance to the electric vehicle industry, given the recent increase in the diversity of printable soft magnetic alloys. The analysis provides insights into the impact of the architecture and process parameters necessary to optimize rotary powder bed fusion for mass production.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Estimating perturbed stress from 3-D borehole displacements induced by fluid injection in fractured or faulted shales

SUMMARY Hydrofracturing stress measurements in fractured and anisotropic shales are notoriously difficult, because opening of existing geological features tends to prevent the creation of a pure hydraulic fracture perpendicular to the least compressive principal stress. Here we show how adding 3-D borehole-displacement measurements while conducting the hydraulic injection test helps to better constrain the principal stress orientations and magnitudes. We developed a 3-D fully coupled hydromechanical numerical model to analyse the displacement, fluid pressure and injection flow-rate data measured during an injection pressure-step-rate test conducted to activate a faulted borehole interval in the Mont Terri Opalinus Clay (Switzerland). We find that injected fluids can only penetrate the fault when it is at or above the Coulomb failure pressure. Borehole displacement orientations are sensitive to a ∼15° variation in the stress–tensor orientation and a 1 MPa stress magnitude variation. Although some dispersion occurs while rupture is propagating along the fault plane ∼4 m away from the borehole, the maximum density of displacement orientations consistently informs about the stress orientation. Thus, an extended injection step-rate approach coupled with an accurate in situ measurement of the borehole wall displacements can be used to better constrain the local stress field perturbations in fractured shales and in heterogeneous rock in general.

Guglielmi, Yves↗
DOE OSTI2020

Detailed space–time variations of the seismic response of the shallow crust to small earthquakes from analysis of dense array data

SUMMARY We compute high-resolution space–time variations of subsurface seismic properties from autocorrelation functions (ACF’s) of noise and local earthquakes, recorded by the Sage Brush Flat dense array deployed around the Clark branch of the San Jacinto fault. The resolved temporal changes are referred to as apparent velocity changes because they reflect both nonlinear response and variations of material properties such as cracking and damage. Apparent velocity changes are estimated at four frequency bands (10–15, 10–20, 15–30 and 20–40 Hz) for two local earthquake data sets. In one analysis, ACF’s from P- and S-wave windows of 31 small events with magnitudes below 3.1 are used to compute the apparent velocity variations with respect to the mean ACF of each phase, and we also use the mean ACF of noise data as reference to estimate the changes. In a further analysis, the temporal evolution of properties is computed using moving time windows in continuous waveform over one-hour long data with noise and earthquake signals. The apparent velocity changes and recovery times are frequency dependent and present a strong spatial variability across the array. The resolved changes are larger and recovery time shorter with data associated with higher frequencies. At frequencies larger than 15 Hz, and using the mean ACF of noise data as a reference, the apparent average velocity changes across the array during the passage of the P and S waves from the small local events are 2.5 per cent and 6 per cent, respectively. The apparent velocity changes decrease by one order of magnitude when the earthquake data are used as a reference. The relatively large changes in response to very low ground motion have important implications on nonlinear processes involving degradation and healing of the subsurface material during common earthquake shaking.

Geochemistry & Geophysics↗