Event: Learn About Hydraulic Fracking: Branching of Hydraulic Fractures in Shale and the Enigma of Preexisting Large-Scale Permeability
Speaker: Zdeněk Bažant, McCormick School Professor and Walter P. Murphy Professor of Civil Engineering and Materials Science, Northwestern University
Date: Tuesday, July 25
Time: 11:00 AM
Location: Science & Engineering Complex, Anderson Hall, Nelson Auditorium
Abstract: The astonishing success of the U.S. industry with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking (or frac process) has drastically improved the country's energy future and altered geopolitics. Many aspects of fracking of gas or oil shale are well understood by now. However, whether, and how, the hydraulic cracks branch still remains unexplained by fracture mechanics. Read more.