Analysis and Comparison of Natural Shear and Induced Tensile Fractures for Caprock Leakage Assessment

Abstract

The comparison between laboratory-induced and subsurface fractures, and their corresponding flow is still unclear. Here, we examine three natural shear fractures and two induced tensile fractures from the same low-permeability lithology. Using high-resolution synchrotron imaging, we extracted three-dimensional fracture void geometries to analyse aperture distributions, surface roughness, and spatial correlation patterns. We then compared measured fracture transmissivities against theoretical predictions from parallel-plate models (cubic law) and direct numerical simulations (DNS) of flow to evaluate consistency and uncertainties. We find that despite differences in heterogeneity, induced tensile and natural shear fractures can generally yield similar flow in caprocks. Our comparisons further indicate that the choice of flow estimation method can introduce more uncertainty than the fracture opening mode.