Photoelasticity

• Fluid injection induced earthquakes related to resource mining and geothermal power generation are concerns among many countries. It is difficult to directly observe the spatiotemporal changes in the fracture development and the stress state due to the water injection several kilometers underground, while we can estimate some extent from borehole measurements and seismic activity. We came up with an experiment using the photoelastic effect, which allows us to directly observe the stress on complex structures. Photoelasticity is a phenomenon that enables visualization of the amount of differential stress in a transparent elastic material. We introduces a photoelastic experimental method to visually observe the crack propagation and stress change in the crust relating to the water injection. The utilization of a transparent and soft agar gel makes it possible to observe the spatiotemporal stress change during the water injection.


See 大嵜・他 (2022) for a detailed description.
注水による誘発地震発生場を模擬した寒天ゲルを用いた光弾性実験手法