Physical Modeling of Hydraulic Fracturing in Rock Mass with Conductive Fractures and a Cavity

The article presents the results of the physical modeling of hydraulic fracturing in coarse cement cubes subjected to triaxial loading. The laboratory-scale plant, hardware and software tools, as well as the methods and engineering solutions applied during the experiments are described. The pressures and the trajectories of fractures which intersect the earlier created crack, including propped fractures and fractures filled with an isolating polymer, are investigated. The possibility to control hydraulic fracturing by deformation of a close-spaced hollow cavity which models an underground opening is demonstrated experimentally.