A New Method of Stress Measurement Based upon Elastic Deformation of Core Sample with Stress Relief by Drilling

When rock is cored at depth by drilling, anisotropic expansion occurs with the relief of anisotropic rock stresses, resulting in a sinusoidal variation of core diameter with a period of 180 deg. in the core roll angle. The circumferential variation of core diameter is given theoretically as a function of rock stresses. These new findings can lead various ideas to estimate the rock stress from circumferential variation of core diameter measured after the core retrieving. In the simplest case when a single core sample is only available, the difference between the maximum and minimum components of rock stress in a plane perpendicular to the drilled hole can be estimated from the maximum and minimum core diameters (see the detail in, Funato and Ito, IJRMMS, 2017). The advantages of this method include, (i) much easier measurement operation than those in other in-situ or in-lab estimation methods, and (ii) applicability in high stress environment where stress measurements need pressure for packers or pumping system for the hydro-fracturing methods higher than their tolerance levels. We have successfully tested the method at deep seismogenic zones in South African gold mines, and we are going to apply it to boreholes collared at 3 km depth and intersecting a M5.5 rupture plane several hundred meters below the mine workings in the ICDP project of "Drilling into Seismogenic zones of M2.0 - M5.5 earthquakes in deep South African gold mines" (DSeis) (e.g., http://www.icdp-online.org/projects/world/africa/orkney-s-africa/details/). If several core samples with different orientation are available, all of three principal components of 3D rock stress can be estimated. To realize this, we should have several boreholes drilled in different directions in a rock mass where the stress field is considered to be uniform. It is commonly carried out to dill boreholes in different directions from a mine gallery. Even in a deep borehole drilled vertically from the ground surface, the downhole tool of rotary sidewall coring allows us to take core samples with different orientations at depths of interest from the sidewall of the vertically-drilled borehole. The theoretical relationship between the core expansion and rock stress has been verified through the examination of core samples prepared in laboratory experiments and retrieved field cores.