ARMA 16-496

Where does the stress path lead?

Irreversibility and hysteresis in reservoir geomechanics
Holt, R.M.
NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
Gheibi, S.
NTNU, Trondheim, Norway
Lavrov, A.
SINTEF Petroleum Research, Trondheim, Norway

Copyright 2016 ARMA, American Rock Mechanics Association

This paper was prepared for presentation at the 50th US Rock Mechanics / Geomechanics Symposium held in Houston, Texas, USA, 26-29 June
2016. This paper was selected for presentation at the symposium by an ARMA Technical Program Committee based on a technical and critical
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ABSTRACT: Reservoir stress changes caused by pore pressure depletion have impacts on hydrocarbon recovery, on safety and
stability margins during drilling, and on possible seismicity. Stress path prediction is a challenge, in particular when pore pressure
is increased by injection after depletion, either for improved recovery or for storage of e.g. CO2. Three different perspectives of
stress path reversal are considered here: i) The mechanical behavior of rock that undergoes unloading and reloading, starting from a
virgin state, has been addressed through controlled laboratory experiments, ii) An analytical approach has been developed to sketch
the interplay of tensile and shear fractures with the stress path itself, and iii) Numerical modeling has been performed to account for
stress heterogeneities and plastic deformation of the reservoir rock. The results show that all these mechanisms may contribute to
the resulting stress path, in addition to the role of thermal stresses associated with injection of cold fluids into reservoirs.

Stress arching, associated with v > 0 , is enhanced by

1. INTRODUCTION
The concept of reservoir stress path is becoming a more
and more relevant tool for describing and understanding
the dynamic behavior of hydrocarbon or storage
reservoirs. Reservoir stress path coefficients are defined
(Hettema et al., 2000) as the change in the total stress
per unit change in the pore pressure Pp (subscripts "v"
and "h" denote vertical and horizontal directions):
v h
=v = ; h (1)
Pp Pp
v and h are often called arching coefficient and
depletion coefficient, respectively. In case of a
laterally infinite reservoir in a linearly elastic and
homogeneous subsurface, no stress is transferred to the
overburden, v = 0 , and the reservoir is deforming
uniaxially (no horizontal strain). The depletion
coefficient is then directed by the Poisson's ratio of the
drained reservoir rock, and by the Biot coefficient :
1 2
h = (2)
1 bound of the pressure window during overbalanced
increasing aspect ratio (= thickness divided by diameter
of the depleting zone), by increasing stiffness of the
surrounding rock relative to the reservoir rock, and by
reservoir tilt (see Fjr et al., 2008, Ch. 12).
The importance of stress path was traditionally seen in
prediction of compaction and subsidence and potential
fault activation during depletion (Zoback and Zinke,
2002; Chan et al., 2004). It has become clear that the
stress path inside the reservoir as well as in the
overburden has a profound influence on the ability to
drill safe and stable wells into a reservoir that is being or
has been depleted. In the permeable zones of the
reservoir, the horizontal stress drops as pore pressure
decreases, as illustrated in Eq. (1), leading to increased
risk of mud losses: While the value of the lost-
circulation pressure in a naturally-fractured reservoir
depends largely on the orientation and morphology of
natural fractures (Lavrov, 2016a), its value in the
absence of natural fractures depends on the far-field
minimum horizontal stress, h . The value of h (with
some safety margin) is commonly used as the upper
drilling and during well cementing (Lavrov, 2016b).
Since the total minimum horizontal stress decreases
during depletion, the risk of lost circulation in a depleted
reservoir is greater than it was before production started.
Reducing mud weight to cope with such scenarios may
however trigger borehole collapse in the non-permeable
parts of the open hole section, leading to stuck pipe and
increased drilling costs. If the stress path coefficient
during subsequent water injection is smaller than during
depletion, the lost-circulation pressure will not be
restored to its pre-depletion level at the end of injection.
The stress path during injection following depletion was
discussed by Santarelli et al. (1998) based on field data
from a poorly consolidated sandstone reservoir in the
North Sea, supported by a few other observations. They
found that the stress path during repressurization by
water injection was essentially the same as that
measured after maximum depletion, corresponding to a
value of h being close to zero during injection. This
would correspond to a Poisson's ratio of 0.5 according to
an elastic model (Eq. (2)). Santarelli et al. speculate that
this behavior is a result of large-scale rock mechanics,
somehow leading to a rigid but perfectly plastic
behavior. They point out that core measurements in the
laboratory do not show similar results, indirectly
attributing the field scale behavior to faults and fractures
beyond the laboratory scale. They also refer to
temperature changes in the injection zone as a possible
explanation. In a more recent paper (Santarelli et al.,
2008), the role of temperature was further highlighted in
a study addressing effects of long-term water injection in
a North Sea field complex.
In this paper, we present three different studies of
possible mechanisms of stress reversal when a depletion
phase is followed by injection. This could be the result
of an enhanced oil recovery operation by e.g. water
injection, or it could be the situation when injecting CO2
into a depleted reservoir. The altered stress path would
clearly affect infill drilling operations, increasing the risk
of mud losses. A key question in several places is to
what extent the injection process may trigger
earthquakes: Although releasing stresses normally leads
to reduced acoustic emission (AE) activity (Kaiser
effect) (Lavrov, 2003; Becker et al., 2010) in the
laboratory and reduced seismicity in field situations,
there may be a finite risk that critically oriented faults
may be activated.
We start by showing results from controlled laboratory
tests, addressing stress path hysteresis in studies of
synthetic rocks formed under stress. Clearly, such
studies are idealized and provide only partly insight into
the field problem. Faults have to be accounted for, and
here we present an analytical approach to describe the
hysteresis related to tensile and shear fractures created or
activated during depletion and subsequent injection.
Finally, numerical simulations on the reservoir scale are
presented, pointing to the importance of spatial variation
of stress path during depletion and injection, associated
with accumulation of localized plastic deformation.
2. LABORATORY SIMULATIONS USING
SYNTHETIC SANDSTONE
Several experimental studies have been performed in our
laboratory, utilizing synthetic sandstone formed under
stress. The main purpose of these studies was to compare
compaction under in-situ conditions with compaction of
a stress-relieved and reloaded core sample (Holt and
Kenter, 1992; Holt et al., 2000; Holt and Stenebrten,
2013; Holt et al., 2014). In these tests, repeated load
cycles were applied to the material, enabling a
systematic study of how the stress path would change
because of altered material properties, albeit still
following the same uniaxial strain path.
These laboratory tests have been performed on dry
material, so that the total axial and radial stresses ( z
and r ) would mimic the effective vertical and
horizontal stresses in the field ( = v v Pp and
h h Pp , respectively). In the case of an infinitely
=
wide reservoir (no stress arching), the effective stress
changes in the reservoir are (using the effective stress
principle and Eq. (1)) v =Pp and h = (1 h )v .
Thus, the depletion coefficient when computed from
laboratory data is given by the Biot coefficient and the
ratio r z =
K0 :
r
h =(1 )=(1 K 0 ) (3)
z
Several laboratory experiments have been analyzed.
Figure 1 shows the calculated depletion coefficient based
on uniaxial compaction (loading, representing simulated
depletion) with subsequent uniaxial extension
(unloading, representing simulated injection) with a very
soft synthetic sandstone (hereafter termed Soft). This
material, having approximately 30 % porosity, was
formed by using sodium silicate solution as a bonding
agent. The sample was cemented with amorphous silica
bonds created when flushing the sample with CO2 at an
axial stress of 7 MPa and a confining pressure of 3.5
MPa. The sample was left to stabilize prior to loading as
well as unloading in order to minimize creep effects.
Table 1 shows Youngs modulus and Poissons ratio for
the Soft sandstone, and the Biot coefficient based on an
anticipated solid grain modulus of 36 GPa (almost pure
quartz). From Figure 1, the depletion coefficient is seen
to decrease with increasing axial stress (mimicking
depletion), but it jumps to a higher level upon stress
reversal (mimicking injection). This is associated with a
reduction in Poissons ratio (increasing K 0 ), which
more than compensates for the reduction in caused by
stiffening of the material during unloading (cf. Eq. (3)).
The stress path coefficient then stays constant until the
sample is unloaded past the previous stress, after which
h starts to decrease. This is evidence of stress memory
(Kaiser Effect), and was also seen in acoustic emission
recordings during an identical test with a similarly
manufactured sample. The Figure contains a calculated
dynamic depletion coefficient (as seen in Table 2),
derived from P- and S-wave velocities measured during
the simulated depletion experiment. The dynamic
coefficient is close to the static at the very beginning of
the experiment, in line with a previously noticed
observation in such experiments (Holt et al., 2013). It
does not however show the decreasing trend of the static
depletion coefficient, while the dynamic and static
values coincide during initial unloading, in agreement
with observations and theoretical arguments relating the
difference between static and dynamic behavior to non-
elastic static deformation (Fjr et al., 2013). Similar
results are also seen in other soft synthetic sandstones.
Figure 1. Depletion coefficient calculated on basis of uniaxial
compaction and extension of Soft synthetic sandstone,
formed at 7 MPa axial stress and 3.5 MPa confining pressure.
The figure includes static h as well as dynamic h calculated
from ultrasonic measurements during the test.
Experiments were also performed with a competent
porous material (hereafter termed Stiff) made by
gluing sand grains with epoxy at an axial stress of 30
MPa and 15 MPa confining pressure, with a porosity of
around 20 %. Data for this material are shown in Table 1
and Table 2 (because of the epoxy content, the solid
grain modulus was anticipated to be lower than for
quartz and somewhat arbitrarily set to 32 GPa).
Figure 2 shows that the depletion coefficient remains
almost constant and very similar to its dynamic
counterpart during initial loading (simulating depletion).
This particular synthetic rock experienced creep,
probably related to the ductile nature of the bonding
agent. No stabilization period was used, which led the
sample to continue to contract slightly during initial
unloading (simulating injection). Hence, the stiffness
during unloading is likely to be overestimated. The
figure shows that reloading after the unloading
(injection) segment more or less leads to the same stress
path as during initial compaction (depletion). However,
the compaction modulus has increased (reducing ) and
Poissons ratio has decreased (decreasing K 0 ), so that
the product (1 K 0 ) remains almost constant.
Figure 2. Depletion coefficient calculated on basis of uniaxial
compaction and extension of Stiff synthetic sandstone,
formed at 30 MPa axial stress and 15 MPa confining pressure.
The figure includes static h as well as dynamic h calculated
from ultrasonic measurements during the test. Notice the
possible influence of creep during unloading (simulated
injection), which is why the reloading behavior is also shown
in this Figure.
Experiments with these and similar materials show that
the hysteresis in Poissons ratio during the 1st loading-
unloading cycle becomes smaller the more competent
the rock is, while is always reduced by the increasing
bulk modulus. Thus, the stress path may decrease upon
going from loading to unloading in competent rocks,
even in the absence of creep. The observations largely
confirm, as was seen for the Soft synthetic sandstone,
that incorporating the dynamic moduli in
dyn (1 K 0,dyn ) (Eq. (1)) yields a good estimate of the
reversed stress path.
As mentioned, the laboratory experiments are only valid
simulations of the field situation for the case of uniaxial
strain, i.e. no stress arching. One may extrapolate the
laboratory findings towards a field situation by using a
geomechanical model that permits finite reservoir size in
addition to elastic contrast between the reservoir and the
overburden. Based on analytical relationships derived by
Mahi (2003) from Finite Element (FEM) simulations by
Mulders (2003), these effects were incorporated for the
soft and the stiff synthetic sandstones described above.
In both cases the ratio between the height and the Table 3 shows that for the Soft sandstone, the depletion
diameter (the aspect ratio) of the depleted/inflated zone constant h always increases during the rebound, also
was set to 0.1. Both synthetic sandstones were placed in when arching is present. For the Stiff sandstone, there is
elastically matched surroundings. In addition, the Soft always a slight decrease. Stiff surroundings promote
sandstone was placed in stiff surrounding rock with E = arching, as expected, whereas arching is reduced in the
5 GPa and = 0.2, and within soft surrounding rock with case of soft surroundings.
E = 1 GPa and = 0.4. The Stiff sandstone was placed in
stiff surrounding rock with E = 30 GPa and = 0.18, and Shahri and Miska (2014) performed pore pressure
within soft surrounding rock with E = 1 GPa and = 0.4. depletion (loading) experiments with liquid-saturated
Berea sandstone, also investigating the effects of
Table 1. The tangent moduli (Youngs modulus E, Poissons subsequent pressure build-up (unloading). They found
ratio , and Biot coefficients ) measured during loading and that the stress path decreased upon stress reversal, and
unloading of the Soft and Stiff synthetic sandstones. The argued that this was caused by an increase in Poissons
measurements are made at different stress levels z above the ratio. In our samples, we do not observe such an
forming stress (see captions of Figures 1 and 2). increase, and the decrease in stress path for competent
Eload / Eunl load / unl load/ unl
rock is attributed to reduction of the Biot coefficient.
z There are however two important differences that make
[MPa] these tests difficult to compare: Saturated and dry rocks
[GPa] [-] [-] may behave differently, and controlling stress history
SOFT 4 0.8 / 2.2 0.34 / 0.29 0.98/0.95 such as in our experiments with synthetic rocks may
make a difference as compared to working with cored
STIFF 30 13.5 / 21.2 0.29 / 0.29 0.67/0.48 materials that are stress-released.
It is clear that the significant decrease in depletion
Table 2. Static and dynamic depletion coefficients estimated constant seen by Santarelli et al. (1998) cannot be
from laboratory data for Soft and Stiff synthetic sandstones, at explained by purely elastic arguments. As hinted in their
different stress levels z above the forming stress (see
1998 paper and elaborated further by Santarelli et al.
captions of Figures 1 and 2, and Table 1).
(2008), thermal stress effects may largely explain
z h,load h_unl h_dyn irreversible stress paths like those observed in the field,
[MPa] [-] [-] [-] if the reservoir has been cooled by continuous water
injection. Hettema et al. (2004) reported several cases of
SOFT 4 0.47 0.57 0.60
lost circulation in North Sea wells drilled close to
STIFF 30 0.40 0.29 0.40 injector wells, and found the horizontal stress to be 5-10
MPa lower than expected from depletion alone. Sreide
et al. (2014) carried out laboratory tests on reservoir
Table 3. Depletion coefficient h and arching coefficient h sandstone from offshore Norway. Cooling from 140 to
estimated on basis of numerical FEM modeling (Mahi, 2003), 60 C led to 14-22 MPa decrease in confining pressure
using the laboratory data obtained with Soft and Stiff synthetic for samples held in uniaxial strain conditions with an
sandstones. The Table lists the influence of the surrounding applied initial in-situ vertical (= axial) stress of 45 MPa.
rock properties; being stiff (E = 30 GPa and = 0.18) or soft The thermal expansion constant th was in the range 1-
(E = 1 GPa and = 0.4).
1.310-5 C-1. The thermal effect can be incorporated
SOFT h,depl v,depl h,inj v,inj according to Perkins and Gonzales (1984), who showed
Sst Reservoir that for a cooled reservoir with small height-to-diameter
ratio, the horizontal stress reduction is given by
Matched 0.47 0.04 0.57 0.05 E
thh th
= T (4)
Stiff surroundings 0.52 0.19 0.59 0.10 1
Soft surroundings 0.48 0.05 0.54 0.03 Here T is the difference between reservoir and
h,depl v,depl h,inj v,inj surrounding rock temperature, i.e. negative for cooling.
STIFF
For the synthetic rocks above, the thermal effect
Sst Reservoir
amounts to 0.01-0.05 MPa/C for the Soft and 0.2-0.4
MPa/C for the Stiff sandstone, provided there is minor
Matched 0.58 0.06 0.56 0.05
difference between their thermal expansion coefficients.
Stiff surroundings 0.61 0.10 0.58 0.07 Hence, one would expect a significant thermal effect for
a stiff rock. With large temperature changes, the effect
Soft surroundings 0.27 0.02 0.26 0.02
should also be noticeable for soft rocks.

3. STRESS PATH AND IRREVERSIBLE
FRACTURE PERMEABILITY: TENSION
FRACTURES
Most rocks do contain fractures. Let us consider the
effect that stress changes during production and
depletion might have on tension (mode-I) fractures
oriented normally to the minimum horizontal in-situ
stress, h (normal faulting (extensional) tectonic regime
is assumed in this Section and the next Section).
Fractures normal to h are important for production
from at least some naturally-fractured reservoirs
(Lorenz, 1999) since, all the rest being equal, fractures
of this orientation have the greatest apertures.
The permeability of a fracture under normal stress
exhibits nonlinearity and hysteresis, as schematically
shown in Figure 3. Similar behavior is characteristic of
rock matrix permeability under loading/unloading
cycles, where it is due to irreversible closure of pores
and microcracks (Lavrov, 2005). In the case of a single
tension fracture, this behavior is due to plastic
deformation and crushing of asperities on the fracture
faces under compression, which leads to irrecoverable
permeability damage.
k depletion level by re-pressurizing the reservoir to the
1
4
3
2
h we now consider a rock with many such fractures
Figure 3. Nonlinearity and hysteresis of fracture permeability
under normal loading. Fracture permeability, k, as a function
of normal effective stress, h . 1 - pre-depletion state; 2
depleted reservoir; 3 after injection, if stress path during
injection is the same as during depletion; 4 after injection, if
stress path during injection is smaller than during depletion.
Let us consider how the permeability of such fractures
changes during depletion of and subsequent injection
into the reservoir. It is assumed that the horizontal
dimensions of the reservoir are much larger than its
vertical dimension. Thus, the stress arching effect is
neglected here.
During depletion, the vertical total stress in such a
reservoir is unchanged and remains equal to the stress
created by overburden's bulk weight. The horizontal total
stress normal to the fracture, h , decreases during
depletion. The effective stress normal to the fracture,
h , increases during depletion. As a result, the fracture
closes, and its permeability decreases (line 1-2 in Figure
3).
During injection, the total vertical stress remains
unchanged, while the effective vertical stress decreases.
As a result, the effective horizontal stress decreases
(Lavrov, 2016c). The extent of this decrease depends on
the horizontal stress path coefficient, h . If the stress
path coefficient is the same during injection as it was
during depletion, restoring the reservoir pressure to the
pre-depletion level will restore the effective horizontal
stress in the reservoir to its pre-depletion value (point 3
in Figure 3). If the stress path coefficient during
injection is smaller than during depletion, the effective
horizontal stress in the reservoir will be smaller after
injection than it was before depletion (point 4 in Figure
3). In any event, the hysteretic behavior of the fracture
permeability makes it highly unlikely that the fracture
permeability after injection will be equal to that before
depletion. Thus, it is, in practice, hardly possible to
restore the permeability of a tension fracture to the pre-
pre-depletion pore pressure value.
We saw above that the fracture permeability during
injection is influenced by the reservoir stress path
coefficient (point 3 vs. point 4 in Figure 3). The stress
path coefficient itself, however, is likely to be influenced
by the fractures. Consider again fractures normal to h .
The fracture aperture during the depletion-injection
cycle behaves similarly to the fracture permeability
(Figure 4).
As evident from Figure 4, the fracture is stiffer during
unloading (injection) than during loading (depletion). If
(Figure 5), the behavior of the rock mass will be affected
by the individual fractures' behavior. As a result, the
effective stiffness of the rock mass in the direction of
h will be higher during injection than during depletion.
The deformability in that direction will be, accordingly,
lower during injection than during depletion. This is
equivalent to having the Poisson's ratio for horizontal
deformation lower during injection than during
depletion. Consequently, the irreversible normal
deformation of tension fractures acts to increase the
stress path coefficient h during injection, as compared
to the h values during depletion. The extent to which
this effect can influence h depends on the availability
and properties of tension fractures normal to h . As
pointed out by Smart et al. (2001), the dominant type of
fractures in a reservoir are not tension fractures oriented
normal to h , but shear fractures that may have
different orientations. (It is also quite unlikely that a
fracture set in situ is oriented exactly normal to the
currently acting h , since fractures develop during the
entire geological history, and their orientations thus need
not be related to the present-day stress directions.)
w increase of the effective normal stress acting on the
Loading
(depletion)
Unloading
(injection)
h
Figure 4. Fracture aperture, w, as a function of normal
effective stress, h .
v and the Biot effective stress coefficient used to compute
h not affect the general conclusions drawn from our
Figure 5. Rock volume with a fracture set normal to h .
4. STRESS PATH AND IRREVERSIBLE
FRACTURE PERMEABILITY: SHEAR
FRACTURES
As mentioned in the previous Section, shear (or
combined shear and tension) fractures are more common
in reservoirs than pure tension (mode-I) fractures.
Let us analyze how slip of a shear fracture may develop
during depletion and subsequent injection. The fracture
is assumed to be located in the reservoir and to be
parallel to the intermediate in-situ stress, H (normal
tectonic regime is assumed here, as before).
Before depletion, the fracture is assumed to be in
equilibrium, i.e. the shear stress on its plane is not
sufficient to overcome Coulomb's friction. During
depletion, the total vertical stress remains constant,
while the total horizontal stress decreases. In the normal
tectonic environment, this would imply that the shear
stress on the fracture increases. Counteracting this effect
is the reduction of the pore pressure, which leads to an
fracture surface. This leads to an increase in the
frictional resistance on the fracture plane. It is intuitively
clear that in order to induce shear (and, thus, alter the
permeability) of a shear fracture under depletion, the
stress path coefficient, h must be sufficiently high so
that the effect of reduction in h dominates. Let us
evaluate how high the stress path coefficient needs to be
in order for the net shear stress on the fracture plane
during depletion to be higher than before depletion. The
net shear stress is defined as follows:
net = n (5)
where is the shear stress on the fracture plane; is
the friction coefficient between the fracture faces; n is
the effective normal stress on the fracture plane. The
cohesion between the fracture faces is neglected here,
n will be assumed equal to unity in this Section (both
assumptions are common in fracture mechanics and will
analysis.)
Eq. (5) shows that the net stress being zero would not
imply that the shear stress has dropped to zero. It would
rather imply that the shear stress is balanced by the
frictional stress.
The net shear stress acting on the fracture plane before
depletion is given by:
=
01 (0)
(net)
2
(
v (h ) sin 2
0
)
(6)
(0) (0) (0) (0)
2
( 2
) (
v + h h - v cos 2 + Pp( )
0
)
(0) (0) (0)
where v , h , Pp are the vertical in-situ stress, the
minimum horizontal in-situ stress, and the pore pressure
in the reservoir before depletion, respectively; is the
angle between the fracture plane and the vertical stress.
Consider now depletion of the reservoir from pore
(0) (d )
pressure Pp to pore pressure Pp
path coefficient during depletion is equal to (h ) , the net
d
shear stress after depletion is given by:
(netd ) =
(net
0) 1 d
( )
+ (h ) Pp( ) Pp( ) sin 2
2
0 d
+ ( ) ( P ( ) P ( ) ) cos
h
d
p
0
p
d 2
( P ( ) P ( ) )
0 d
p p
(d )
Thus, for net to be greater than net , the stress path
coefficient must meet the following condition during
depletion:
(h ) >
d
cos ( sin + cos )
If this condition is not met, there will be no slip on the
fracture during depletion if there was no slip before
depletion. In other words, if the condition given by Eq.
(8) is not met, fracture will become more stable during
depletion. If the condition given by Eq. (8) is met, there
might be slip. Whether slip indeed occurs will depend on
how close the fracture was to slip in the original (pre-
depletion) state. If the in-situ stress anisotropy was large
enough, and the friction coefficient sufficiently small,
slip may develop during depletion, provided Eq. (8)
holds for the stress path.
Eq. (8) demonstrates that the stress path coefficient
controls whether or not slip may occur on an oblique
fracture during depletion.
Permeability of a fracture can be changed in different
ways during slip. If the effective normal stress, n , is
sufficiently low, the fracture may experience dilation
caused by asperities of the fracture faces. As a result, the
fracture permeability may increase (Esaki et al., 1999).
If slip continues, the permeability may again decrease
because of gouge accumulation (Smart et al., 2001). If
the effective normal stress is sufficiently high, the
fracture permeability may start decreasing from the very
beginning of the slip (Gutierrez et al., 2000).
Let us now consider what happens to the fracture during
subsequent injection into the reservoir. During injection,
the total vertical stress is unchanged, while the total
horizontal stress increases (if the stress path coefficient
during injection is greater than zero) or remains
unchanged (if the stress path coefficient is zero).
Consider two extreme cases: (i) the stress path
coefficient during injection is equal to that during
depletion ( (h ) = (h ) ) and (ii) the stress path coefficient
i d
< Pp(0) . If the stress (i )
during injection is equal to zero ( h = 0 ).
If (h ) = (h ) and the reservoir is re-pressurized to the
i d
original, pre-depletion pore pressure level, the pre-
depletion status quo (in terms of pore pressure and in-
situ stresses) will be restored at the end of the injection.
(7) This will stabilize the shear fracture. There will be no
additional slip on the fracture plane during injection,
and, subsequently, no further permeability change.
(i )
If h = 0 , the total in-situ stresses do not change, while
(0)
the pore pressure increases during injection. The shear
stress on the fracture plane thus does not change, while
the effective normal stress decreases, thereby increasing
the net shear stress. Thus, if slip was initiated on an
(8) oblique fracture during depletion, it will in this case
continue during injection. If slip was not initiated during
depletion, it might or might not be initiated during
injection.
This analysis shows that the stress path coefficient
controls whether or not slip will continue, will cease or
will start on an oblique fracture during injection. In any
event, the slip created during depletion (and thus the
fracture permeability alteration) cannot be reversed
during subsequent injection.
Note that no assumptions about elasticity or plasticity of
the rock have been made in this Section. To arrive at the
conclusion marked by italic, it is not necessary to invoke
any specific mechanism of stress path change during the
depletion/injection cycle.
In addition to the effect of stress path on slip activation
at shear fractures and faults discussed above, the slip
itself may affect the stress path. If a shear fracture (or a
fault) has been activated during depletion, the in-situ
stresses in its vicinity will be no longer controlled by the
properties of the bulk rock, but will instead be
determined by the slip condition. This condition reads as
follows:
(netd ) = 0 (9)
The net shear stress on the fracture (or fault) during
depletion is given by:
1 (d )
(netd )
=
2
( )
v (hd ) sin 2
d d
2
( ) (
2
d
)
(v ) + (h ) (h ) - (v ) cos 2 + Pp( ) (10)
d d
=0
 (d ) (d ) (d )
where v , h , Pp are the vertical in-situ stress, the
minimum horizontal in-situ stress, and the pore pressure
in the reservoir during depletion, respectively.
Assuming, as before, that the total vertical stress near an
activated shear fracture remains unchanged during
depletion (no stress arching), and taking the derivative of
Eq. (9) with respect to Pp( ) , we obtain the following
d the material. MDEM can also model plasticity
stress path coefficient for a shear fracture activated
during depletion:
d (hd )
= (11)
dPp (d )
cos ( sin + cos )
Thus, the activated shear fracture may affect the stress
path in its vicinity. If many shear fractures (or faults) are
activated in the reservoir during depletion, the reservoir
stress path may be significantly affected.
There is thus a two-way coupling between shear
fractures (faults) and the stress path during depletion:
the activated shear fractures affect the stress path, and
the stress path governs the slip on these fractures.
During subsequent injection, the shear fractures may
become stabilized (irreversibility of slip discussed
above). The reservoir stress path during injection will in
this case be largely determined by the bulk properties of
the reservoir rocks. Thus, the stress path coefficient may
be different during injection and during depletion, if it is
influenced by active shear fractures and faults. The
magnitude of this difference will depend on the
properties of the fractures (inclination, abundance,
friction coefficient) and the anisotropy of the far-field in-
situ stresses.
It should be noted that, in reality, a fault or a shear
fracture might be activated only at some locations
(Longuemare et al., 2002). This will further complicate
its effect on the reservoir stress path.
Our analysis leading to Eq. (11) is inspired by the
similar analysis performed by Addis et al. (1996) for a
fault of the most critical orientation. Our analysis is an
extension of their work to faults and fractures of an
arbitrary orientation since, as pointed out also by Addis
et al., the orientation of faults and fractures does not
need to be linked to the contemporary in-situ stress field.
Our Eq. (11) reduces to Addis et al.'s Eq. (9) for the
most-critically stress fault.
heterogeneity, presence of joints and faults, boundary
conditions, etc. To investigate the stress path hysteresis
on the field scale, a numerical model was set up in a
hybrid FEM/DEM in-house code called MDEM (Alassi,
2008; Lavrov et al., 2015). In the elastic regime, the
calculation is equivalent to FEM, and the problem
becomes that of a discontinuum when cracks develop in
(softening-hardening) after the material reaches its yield
point. Therefore, it can handle the linear elastic,
softening, and discrete behavior of materials. Moreover,
it can be coupled to fluid flow simulators. In the
examples in this paper, MDEM is not coupled to any
flow simulator, and the depletion or injection is
mimicked by changing the pore pressure in a defined
region of the domain. The simulations are performed
with a 2D version of the model. The reservoir is a 1 km
x 100 m region with half-circle edges to smoothen the
reservoir boundary and reduce the stress concentrations
at the corners (Figure 6).
Table 4 shows the rock mechanical properties of the
reservoir (as I in the table) and the surroundings (as II in
the table). The effective in-situ stresses are 50 and 20
MPa, and the stress regime is normal faulting, meaning
that the vertical stress is the maximum principal stress.
The material can undergo plastic deformation, and the
plasticity modulus is equal to 108 Pa. The plasticity
modulus represents the stress drop due to the softening
of the rock after peak strength. This low value was
chosen to make the material deform in a ductile manner
rather than to fail in a brittle fashion. The initial pore
pressure is assumed to be zero.
Figure 6. The 1km x 100 m reservoir model under a normal
faulting stress regime.

To simulate depletion, the pore pressure was reduced

5. NUMERICAL MODELING OF
SCALE STRESS PATH HYSTERESIS
Rock behavior is scale dependent, and laboratory scale
behavior might not necessarily represent the rock
behavior on the field scale. This may be due to
FIELD-
from 0 to -32.5 MPa. As a result of the pore pressure
reduction, the material undergoes plastic deformation.
Therefore, the stress redistribution in the subsequent
simulation steps is path dependent.
Table 4. Mechanical properties of the rock in the numerical
model.
Tensile Shear Softening
E Friction
strength strength modulus
(GPa) coefficient
(MPa) (MPa) (Pa)
I 15 0.3 1.6 4-4.7 0.35 1e8
II 15 0.3 1.6 4-4.7 0.57 1e8
To reduce the path dependency, pore pressure was
changed by 1 MPa per step. After the depletion had
reached the final pressure (-32.5 MPa), the pore pressure
was increased in 1 MPa steps to simulate the injection.
Figure 7 indicates the different depletion and injection
stages with their names and specifies the amount of
pressure change at each stage. There are two scenarios:
only injection and injection after depletion. The
only injection scenario is from point O (the initial
state) to G in Figure 7, with an accompanying pore
pressure increase of 5.5 MPa. The injection after
depletion scenario proceeds from O to A and point B by
decreasing the pore pressure to -32.5 MPa in 1 MPa
steps. In O => A stage, the pore pressure was decreased
by 0.5 MPa to obtain the stress path in the very
beginning of the depletion where the model is in the
elastic domain (Figure 8a).
The injection stages are began from point C to F with 16,
32, 37.5 and 45 MPa pressure increase with respect to
point B, i.e. the final depletion stage. The colors of the
markers in Figure 7 correspond to the Mohr circles in
Figure 8 and Figure 9.
Figure 7. The names of the different cases with pressure
change information in each case.
Results are shown in the form of depletion coefficient
( h ) along a horizontal line passing through the
reservoir center (Y=0) and plots of the most unstable
Mohr circles corresponding to the reservoir center, inner
and outer flanks for different cases. Figure 8-a shows the
horizontal stress path along the line Y=0. The curves
O => A and A => B show the stress paths for the early
and late depletion stages, respectively. It is clear from
Figure 8 that the stress path coefficient is different for
the O => A and A => B cases, and it decreases as the
depletion continues. This is because of the damage
(plastic deformation) that occurs in the model. The
damage accumulates in the center of the reservoir first,
then due to greater reduction in the pore pressure and the
increase in the vertical stress at the outer flanks, the
number of the damaged elements increases in the outer
flanks. In the center of the reservoir (-100 m < x < 100
m) the stress path fluctuates at A => B, but generally it is
lower than the stress path at O => A, because of the
damage incurred in the reservoir center. However, the
reduction in the stress path is significant in the other
parts of the model, i.e. at the inner and outer flanks. It
even becomes negative for the outer flanks, meaning that
the depletion will increase the x-stress at the outer
flanks, which is opposite to the elastic solution. The
reason is the damage accumulation near the outer flanks.
After the depletion, the injection was simulated by
increasing the pore pressure. As seen in Figure 8a, the
stress path (after final depletion) is constant up to +16
MPa pore pressure increase (step C, net pressure is -16.5
MPa = -32.5 MPa + 16 MPa). However, after this stage,
additional damage was created at the inner flanks and the
stress path changed. After the failure in the inner flanks
during pressure rebound, the stress path coefficient
increased. The maximum increase was recorded in the
inner flanks. The amount of damage (number of
damaged elements) inside the reservoir increased by a
factor of three compared to the previous (when it was
mainly in the inner flanks). Figure 8b, c and d indicate
the most unstable Mohr circles for different depletion-
injection stages at the center, inner and outer flanks
respectively. For the reservoir center, the green Mohr
circle indicates the stress state after -32.5 MPa depletion
and 32 MPa pressure rebound, meaning that the
reservoir pressure has almost fully rebounded. If there
were no hysteresis, the circle would return to the initial
stress state (the dark blue circle). However, we recorded
a hysteresis which is not very significant for the
reservoir center. If the injection is continued up to the
net pressure of +13.5 MPa (magenta colored circle), the
Mohr circle at the reservoir center moves towards the
failure envelope in Figure 8. The dashed lines in
Figures 8 and 9 represent failure envelopes for possible
pre-existing faults or fractures in the reservoir or the
surrounding rocks. In contrast to the reservoir center, the
hysteresis is significant in the inner and outer flanks
(Figure 8c, d), especially in the inner flank. The rebound
stress state is more unstable compared to the initial stress
state. Increasing the pore pressure further might be
dangerous.
It is also important to investigate the differences between
the injection into a depleted field and into an intact
formation, such as during CO2 injection into a saline
aquifer. Figure 9 indicates the stress paths and the Mohr
circles corresponding to the reservoir center, inner and
outer flanks for the two scenarios of only injecting up to
5.5 MPa (case G in Figure 7) and pressurizing by 37.5
MPa after depletion by 32.5 MPa (E in Figure 7; , final
pressure +5.5 MPa). As discussed above, the hysteresis
in negligible in the center, however, there is a
considerable hysteresis in outer and inner flanks. The
inner flank (Figure 9c) for both scenarios might be
unstable. However, the injection into the depleted model
is significantly more unstable. Also, in the pure injection
case, the outer flank becomes stable, while it may
become unstable during injection into the depleted
reservoir.
So far, we have observed that the stress path hysteresis is
greater in the outer and inner flanks than in the center of
the reservoir. Figure 10 indicates the variation of the
stress path with increasing number of damaged elements
at locations of -450 m and -470 m in the reservoir flanks.
According to Figure 10, the stress path decreases slightly
by increasing damage at the center due to depletion. The
stress path reduction becomes significant after -19.5
MPa pore pressure reduction. This is due to the failure at
the outer flanks. In the rebound, there is no significant
change in the stress path up to the 23 MPa pressure
rebound. However, if the injection is continued, the
inner flank is damaged, and the stress path increases at
both locations and becomes constant at higher injection
pressures.
6. CONCLUSIONS
The title of this paper indicates that the authors aim at
giving clear directions as to where the stress path leads.
The work performed shows that stress path
irreversibility and hysteresis can be expected for several
reasons. So, what has been achieved is maybe more bits
and pieces of a map that the user will need in order to
reach the final target.
Material behavior is irreversible, as demonstrated by
laboratory experiments with synthetic rocks formed
under stress. A fundamental source of that irreversibility
is the non-elastic (plastic) behavior of rocks when they
are brought away from their initial virgin state. The
stress path hysteresis is controlled by the product
(1 K 0 ) , and only in the initial state and at the turning
point of the stress path is this given by the purely elastic
rock properties. This may provide guidance towards
estimating stress path from seismic data, but then
neglecting the effects of thermal stresses caused by
injection of cold fluids, and the other mechanisms that
were considered in this paper.
The numerical simulations presented above demonstrate
that plastic deformation has a significant impact on the
stress path: h decreases during depletion, with the
amount of the stress path reduction depending on the
location within the reservoir. The hysteresis might be
negligible in the central parts of the reservoir, but h
decreases considerably in the inner and outer flanks in
our simulations. Injection was seen to change the stress
state differently, causing plastic deformation in different
locations of the reservoir and its surroundings. In our
simulations, the inner flanks failed, and h increased in
the flanks as a result. Clearly, the resulting stress path is
different if injection is started without preceding
depletion.
The presence of faults or fractures is known to affect the
stress path (Addis et al., 1996). Here, an analytical
approach has been presented, showing that the stress
path coefficient in a fractured reservoir is affected by
irreversible behavior of tensile and shear fractures
(faults). On the other hand, the stress path itself affects
reactivation of shear fractures and faults during depletion
and injection. As a result, it affects microseismicity and
permeability evolution in a naturally-fractured and
faulted rock. There is thus a two-way coupling between
the fracture deformation and the stress path coefficient.
Permeability caused by tensile fractures exhibits
irreversible, hysteretic behavior during
depletion/injection for a naturally-fractured reservoir. As
a result, it is not possible to restore the permeability of
such a reservoir to the pre-depletion level by simply
repressurizing the reservoir, even if the same stress paths
are followed during production and injection.
The final permeability of tensile fractures after injection
will be determined, amongst other factors, by the
reservoir stress path coefficient during injection.
We have not planned to include any specific field case in
this paper. Rather, the intention was to present generic
considerations that should be relevant for different
applications. For instance, the percentage change of the
fracture permeability as a function of stress depends
largely on the type of the rock, e.g. these properties
would be completely different in a crystalline rock, such
as granite, and a sedimentary rock, such as shale or
sandstone. Again, the objective here was not to perform
a review of available experimental databases but rather
to take a step further and to illuminate the effects that
these properties can have in reservoir geomechanics.
Figure 8. a)The stress path coefficient h along a horizontal line Y=0 crossing the reservoir center, b) Mohr circle at the reservoir
center, c) Mohr circles at the inner flanks, d) Mohr circles at the outer flanks for different scenarios. Arrows to the right and to left
are for depleted and injected scenarios respectively. (The legend description can be found in the text and in Figure 7).

Figure 9. a) The stress path coefficient h along a horizontal line crossing the reservoir center, b) Mohr circle at the reservoir
center, c) Mohr circles at the inner flanks, d) Mohr circles at the outer flanks for only injection and injection after depletion.

Figure 10. Number of damaged elements vs pressure change
and the corresponding h due to depletion and rebound.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thank colleagues at NTNU and
SINTEF for valuable discussions. SINTEF Petroleum
Research is acknowledged (AL) for permission to
perform and publish part of the present work. The work
is partly performed (RMH) within the ROSE Program at
NTNU, funded by The Research Council of Norway and
a number of industrial partners. This publication has also
been produced with partial support from the BIGCCS
Centre (for SG), performed under the Norwegian
research program Centres for Environment-friendly
Energy Research (FME). The authors acknowledge the
following partners for their contributions: Gassco, Shell,
Statoil, TOTAL, ENGIE, and the Research Council of
Norway (193816/S60).
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