Studies On Explosively Driven Cracks Under Confining In-Situ Stresses

Successful explosive gas well stimulation requires a thorough understanding of explosively driven cracks under confining in-situ stresses. In a previous paper (Simha, et a1 1983) the problem of explosively driven cracks was experimentally investigated to reveal the features of crack propagation. It was observed that the explosively driven crack propagation is the result of two different but overlapping phases. The first phase involving the initiation and early time crack propagation is entirely governed by the explosively generated stress transients. The rapidly decaying stress transients then lead to the second phase of crack propagation largely controlled by the in-situ stresses. The purpose of this paper is to more fully understand the characteristics of the first phase concerning the initiation and early time propagation of explosively driven cracks. Experiments are conducted with plastic models under biaxial compression and the dynamic event is observed with a high speed multiple spark gap camera of the Cranz-Schardin type. The experimental observations are utilized to propose analytical models of crack initiation under explosive loading to aid in the design of multiple fracturing necessary for successful application of modern well stimulation techniques.