Anisotropy of flow in a fracture undergoing shear and its relationship to the direction of shearing and injection pressure

Abstract The work presented deal with the effects of shear direction and injection flow rate on the directional anisotropy of the flow for a given normal stress. Also, is related to these effects the evolution of the intrinsic transmissivity of the fracture in relation to the shear direction and tangenital displacements, particularly for small displacements. Tests are performed on mortar replicas of a natural fracture so that the fracture roughness and void space geometry are the same for each test. Three shear directions are defined. These tests results show that the evolution of the intrinsic transmissivity of a fracture depends on the shear direction particularly for small displacements (less than 0.5 mm), and that shearing induces noticeable modifications in flow direction.