• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.135-141
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• 2009

Fracturing technique using fluid injection into the borehole is widely used technology in the industry for the geothermal heat, oil, and gas extraction. Dealing with fluid-driven natural fractures such as dike and vein indirectly, design technology would be improved by adapting their principles. In this paper, mechanical interaction between the segments is evaluated by modeling highly segmented and closely spaced fluid-driven natural fractures. The number of segments is 71 with 3,339 measured apertures in which the interaction is considerably predicted. To evaluate mechanical interaction, boundary collocation method is used and the net pressure is calculated by using least square method to fit measured apertures. As a result, in case that mechanical interaction is considered, two pressures as fitting parameters are sufficient to capture measured apertures.