Ambient temperature testing of the G-tunnel heated block

The G-tunnel heated block experiment is conducted on the Nevada Test Site (NTS) as part of the Nevada Nuclear Waste Storage Investigations project (NNWSI). The purpose of the ambient temperature testing phase is to evaluate rock-mass mechanical properties of a block (approx. 8 m(3)) under biaxial stress changes up to 7.5 MPa above an initialization in situ value of 3.1 MPa. Results indicate that the modulus of deformation ranges from 9.7 to 17.0 GPa and Poisson's ratio ranges from 0.21 to 0.33. In general, the higher values of the modulus and Poisson's ratio were influenced by fracture propagations parallel to the compressive stress field. Other measurements indicated that cross-hole compression (p) wave velocities and single fracture permeability values were relatively insensitive to stress changes above the in situ value.