Detection of borehole breakouts at the Forsmark site, Sweden

• The objective of this paper was to investigate if borehole breakouts exist at the Forsmark investigation site of the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Co. Breakouts generally form when the stress concentration around the borehole exceeds the rock strength of the borehole wall, and result in borehole failure in the direction parallel to the minimum horizontal stress in vertical boreholes. Borehole televiewer and borehole image processing system data in boreholes KFM01A and KFM01B have been analyzed. The analyzes reveal that breakouts appear over 30-40% of the length of the investigated boreholes. The breakouts appear with both shallow- and deep-failure depths, where the overwhelming majority is of the shallow failure type. The scope of this initial study does not include the full characterization of identified breakouts and it is not clear at this stage as to the origin of the breakouts, i.e. if they are stress and/or drilling induced

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Samhällsbyggnadsteknik -- Annan samhällsbyggnadsteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Civil Engineering -- Other Civil Engineering (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Gruv- och Berganläggningsteknik

Mining and Rock Engineering

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)