Time-sensitivity of the Kaiser effect of acoustic emission in limestone and its application to measurements of in-situ stress

Abstract

Measuring in-situ stress by using the Kaiser effect in rocks has such advantages as time-efficiency, low cost and little limitation, but the precision of the method is dependent on rock properties and delay time of the measurement. In this paper, experiments on the Kaiser effect in limestones were performed, and it was found that the limestones had good ability to retain a memory of their recent stress history and high time-sensitivity. The longer the experiment was delayed from the extraction of the stone, the larger the Felicity ratio was. As the Felicity ratio approached 1, significant Kaiser effect was observed. In-situ stress should be determined by the limestone measurements when the delay time was 40-120 days. Finally, the in-situ stress in a limestone formation could be successfully measured in practice. © 2009 China University of Petroleum (Beijing) and Springer-Verlag GmbH.