Frictional slip weakening and shear-enhanced crystallinity in simulated coal fault gouges at slow slip rates

Fan, Caiyuan; Liu, Jinfeng; Hunfeld, Luuk B.; Spiers, Christopher J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1399-2020

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1399-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Special issue:

Thermo-hydro-mechanical–chemical (THMC) processes in natural...

https://doi.org/10.5194/se-11-1399-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 11, issue 4

Research article

|

26 Jul 2020

Research article |

| 26 Jul 2020

Frictional slip weakening and shear-enhanced crystallinity in simulated coal fault gouges at slow slip rates

Caiyuan Fan, Jinfeng Liu, Luuk B. Hunfeld, and Christopher J. Spiers

Data sets

Frictional slip weakening and shear-enhanced crystallinity in simulated coal fault gouges at subseismic slip rates J. Liu and L. B. Hunfeld https://doi.org/10.24416/UU01-48I5DA

Short summary

Coal is an important source rock for natural gas recovery, and its frictional properties play a role in induced seismicity. We performed experiments to investigate the frictional properties of bituminous coal, and our results show that the frictional strength of coal became significantly weakened with slip displacement, from a peak value of 0.5 to a steady-state value of 0.3. This may be caused by the development of shear bands with internal shear-enhanced molecular structure.