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Hydraulic fracturing is a key technology for increasing the permeability of coal seams and improving the extraction effect of coalbed methane. Exploring the parameters that represent the infiltration effect is an essential part of the optimization process of hydraulic fracturing. In this work, based on a similarity principle design, a hydraulic fracturing test was carried out on large raw coal samples using an indoor hydraulic fracturing physical simulation test system. Based on the distribution of primary cracks in the coal samples, the law of crack extension during hydraulic fracturing was studied. The stress variations before and after hydraulic fracturing of the coal seams were monitored, and the stress transfer laws during confining pressure loading and hydraulic fracturing were investigated. The experiment showed that the new fissures in the fracturing process are more likely to extend to the primary fissure development area. When the applied coal body stress exceeds the strength of the coal sample body, the internal cracks in the coal sample are completely penetrated. During this complete penetration, the energy accumulated by pressure water injection is continuously released, and the count detected by the acoustic emission increases sharply. The coal is mainly subjected to compressive stress during the confining pressure loading process, whereas the coal body is mainly subjected to a shear stress during the hydraulic fracturing process. Both the stresses can be transferred through the coal samples. When the stress increase during hydraulic fracturing is greater than the confining load, the overall effect is due to different stresses. As the cracks continue to expand and extend during hydraulic fracturing, the stress transfer effect becomes weaker. Through the exploration of the law of crack extension and stress transmission, this experiment showed that large-scale physical simulation experiments in a laboratory setting can help effectively simulate on-site hydraulic fracturing conditions. The test method and results reported herein provide a reference and basis for the design and optimization of on-site hydraulic fracturing parameters.

Acoustic emission (AE) is a popular technique to monitor the process of rock failure during hydraulic fracturing for unconventional natural gas production. It contains abundant information that will be useful to study in-depth the nature of hydraulic fracturing. In this study, we focused on the AE count, energy, peak frequency, crack classification, and location recorded from four rock specimens subjected to a specific triaxial stress condition. We found the multi-frequency-response phenomenon of AE, and proposed the multi-frequency-response index to indicate the moment of the macrohydraulic crack formation. Furthermore, it was found that the power law distribution index of AE energy of non-stratified specimen was bigger than that of stratified specimens during hydraulic fracturing. The tensile crack dominated in all hydraulic fracturing tests. Our results are of significance for understanding hydraulic fracturing in stratified rocks.

Hydraulic fracturing can evidently improve the coalbed methane production in underground coal mines, but it is difficult to delimit the stimulated area accurately. In order to evaluate the stimulated area, microseismic (MS) monitoring technique is proposed to investigate the seismic responses of the induced fractures of hydraulic fracturing. Three coal seams were targeted to be treated in a coal mine. An array of geophones was set along the underground roadway to detect the MS signals caused by HF. In order to verify the result of MS monitoring, water content of each coal seam has been measured before and after HF treatment. The results showed that a series of MS events were detected during the entire HF process, and a sharp MS event usually occurred during the first hour of HF process. The energy of the sharp MS event had higher magnitude than others. The MS distribution exhibited complex morphological features. The directionless MS response was distributed over a radius of less than 40 m but tended to be significantly conjugated with a radius of more than 40 m. HF could stimulate both the coal seam and the rock layers nearby. The achievable stimulated area in the coal seam was determined to be 50 m × 50 m according to the MS density and water content. The stimulated area in terms of MS density was easily found to be broader than the area of water direct intrusion. The present study indicated that MS monitoring technique could potentially be used for evaluation of HF in underground coal mine.

The study of stress transfer can delimitate the hydraulic fracturing (HF) range to evaluate the extraction efficiency of coalbed methane (CBM). However, less research has been done to explore the stress change of underground coal seam due to the field test limitations. In this paper, a total of 9 stress monitoring boreholes (SMBs) are designed to investigate the stress evolution of coal seam during HF through field experiments. Although the middle-low pressure fracturing may cause some stress concentrations, the stress could completely release in the period of subsequent mining, which will not cause potential safety hazards. The stress increase direction is more likely to extend to the original fracture area, especially the direction of loose ring in front of coal seam. The range of stress increase is inversely proportional to the distance to the hydraulic fracturing borehole (HFB) in the same direction, except for the geological structure development areas. The plastic ring will expand with an increasing radius R 1 along with the stress increase of coal seam until the radial stress increment Δ σ rp of outer wall of plastic ring decreases to zero. The effective stress affecting range is about 140 m according to the analysis of stress transfer at different time during HF. The stress no longer increases and gradually decreases to stability after fracturing. The stress transfer method is one of ways to represent the effective region of field HF and enrich the evaluation system for HF affecting range.

Hydraulic fracturing is an efficient technique for enhancing coal seam gas production. Induced stress (or stress shadow) of hydraulic fracturing has been popularly studied recent years. In this study, induced stress was measured in a field during the process of hydraulic fracturing. It was found that the induced stress evolution was closely related to the increase of injection volume. The relation between the average induced stress value and the injection volume was fit by the Michaelis-Menten equation well. When carried out the injection operation, we found that the induced stress increased significantly within the radius of 70 m around the hydraulic fracturing borehole. The induced stress also dropped occasionally during the injection process, which indicated some large fractures’ propagation. When the injection operation was finished, the induced stress began to decrease slowly. The subsequent drilling of gas extraction could release the induced stress. In addition, the induced stresses caused by adjacent fracturing boreholes (spacing was 50 m) substantially influenced each other. The induced stress acted earlier in the upper part of the coal seam than the lower part influenced by the steep incidence of the coal seam. Furthermore, the orientation of the induced stress distribution was eventually parallel to the maximum horizontal principal stress direction controlled by a nearby large fault, although the initial orientation was arbitrary. The results are helpful for hydraulic fracturing evaluation and optimization and numerical simulation research.

Hydraulic fracturing is an effective method to improve the permeability of coal seams and enhance extraction of coalbed methane (CBM). Evolution of cracks in coal seam becomes increasingly complex when one borehole is drilled through multiple coal seams. In this work, physical models with two coal seams having different uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) ratios and height ratios were prepared to study the competitive initiation and extension of cracks based on pump pressure, acoustic emission (AE) source location, and crack morphology. The results showed that, a competitive relationship exists between the two coal seams in terms of crack extension. The pump pressure curves of all specimens presented four stages: (I) fluid-filling stage, (II) pressure rise stage, (III) pressure drop stage, and (IV) pressure stabilization stage. Compared with the pure specimen, the crack initiation pressure of specimens with two coal seams reduced generally. The AE source locations were first generated and mainly distributed in the softer coal seam, resulting in the formation of a complex crack network, whereas only a few cracks were generated in the harder coal seam, as observed after cutting the specimens. In seams with different height ratios, the AE source locations and tracers indicated that cracks preferentially developed and extended in the thinner coal seam. The higher the height ratio of the two coal seams, the more difficult it was for cracks to extend simultaneously in two coal seams. The research results will help improve the permeability of CBM reservoirs when subjecting multiple coal seams to hydraulic fracturing.