Laboratory Details

Rock Mechanics Laboratory, LaMeRoc

The Rock Mechanics Laboratory (LaMeRoc) mainly performs experimental research on the broad fields of applied rock mechanics. That includes the basic understanding of geomechanical processes (e.g. fracture mechanics of quasi-brittle materials above ambient conditions) as well as the advanced investigation of coupled phenomena (i.e. thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical processes associated with the flow of reactive fluids through rocks of diverse composition). Ongoing projects mainly develop experimental aspects related with the green energy transition (e.g. CO2 storage and mineralization, H2 storage in depleted gas reservoirs or salt caverns, thermal energy storage in rocks or geothermics). These are supported by complementary activities focused in the design, improvement and adaptation of equipment to better cope with the challenges inherent to coupled processes experimentation. The facilities available at LaMeRoc are highly competitive to perform a large number of researches either at the low or high pressure and temperature conditions that prevail in the shallow crust (i.e. several thousand meters-depth). Worth mentioning among them are two fully-equipped pseudo-triaxial cells (MTS and GL Test Systems), two true-triaxial frames designed in-house (for cubic samples of up to 300 mm-edge), several core holders, zero lateral strain consolidometers, two high-load rock shear testing apparatus or rock fracture toughness equipment useful to perform experiments at room conditions or in the presence of pressurized fluids (gas or liquids) at high temperature. This equipment’s are complemented with a wide variety of data acquisition systems to monitor the signals of diverse instrumentation (load cells, extensometers, multichannel acoustic sensors, ultrasonic velocity platens, digital image correlation systems, etc.) allowing the measurement and/or the research over a wide number of rock properties (strength, toughness, liquid or gas permeability, static and dynamic moduli, thermal properties, breakthrough pressures, etc.)