stress and fracture permeability along the stillwater fault zone, Dixie Valley, Nevada

The paper reports results of a numerical analysis of the wedge indentation problem. The main objective of this research is to investigate the influence of the lateral confining stress σ0 on the development of the plastic zone under the indenter and on the initiation of tensile fractures. Numerical analysis indicates that the location of maximum tensile stress (interpreted as the point of crack initiation) moves away from the indentation axis as...