The development characteristics of land subsidence of Xi'an by an advanced InSAR technique are investigated based on Envisat, Radarsat-2 and Sentinel-1 satellites, and it can be found that there still have been five typical land subsidence bowls with maximum subsidence rates beyond 40 mm/year in Xi'an. In 2012, the land subsidence took on slightly slowing down with a ground rebound area of up to 6.3 km². But in 2003–2010, 2016 and 2017, there was more serious land subsidence and especially in 2017 the maximum velocity reached up to −137 mm/year. Yuhuazhai-Nanyaotou subsidence bowl as the greatest subsidence bowl, its area that rate was below 50 mm/year in 2017 was up to 10.64 km². Moreover, these land subsidence bowls mainly concentrate upon tectonic depression area due to huge thickness clay soil and are spatially and temporally coincident with confined aquifer depression cones, suggesting that over-exploitation groundwater plays a decisive role for land subsidence. Ground fissure belts are generally controlled by normal faults in Xi'an, but asymmetry settlement of land surface can also give rise to the abnormal activities of ground fissure belts, which have caused serious threat or damage to building structures. In addition, it could also be found that surface uplift area in 2012 involves in both the tectonic depression area and loess ridge in terms of their same thickness sand layer.

The complex high temperature and high stress are commonly encountered in the hot dry rock for geothermal energy development; the thermal effect on the rock properties and corresponding thermal-hydromechanical coupling process has attracted much more attentions in the field of the energy. Taking the sandstones in Chongqing as a case study, the physical and mechanical experiments of the heat-treated sandstones and corresponding permeability tests under triaxial loading conditions have been widely conducted. It can be seen that the quality, porosity, uniaxial compression strength, and elastic modulus of the heated sandstones vary differently with different heat-treated temperature. As for the permeability tests in the process of gradual failure under triaxial loading conditions, the permeability variation divided by four variation stages is the same as that under room temperature condition, and the initial permeability, minimum permeability, and maximum permeability have been characterized with temperature variation, showing that the permeability variation in a certain temperature range from 400°C to 600°C presents more obvious than that in other temperature ranges. Furthermore, the relationship between the permeability and the crack volumetric strain of the heat-treated sandstones is further analyzed to prove the mechanism of the permeability evolution. In addition, a damage model has been proposed to deeply determine the correlation of the permeability and damage variables, indicating that gradual damage variation has caused obvious cracks to form flow paths and abruptly change the permeability variation, revealing that the damage can describe the permeability evolution of the heat-treated sandstones considering different temperature and loading conditions.

During the formation of deep rock bodies, such as hot dry rock, they are frequently exposed to high temperatures and repeated stress perturbations. The prolonged interaction of these two factors is a potential cause of deep underground rock instability. To investigate the effects of high temperature and cyclic loading–unloading modes on rock mechanical properties, cyclic tests were conducted on granite under real-time high-temperature conditions using a multifunctional high-temperature testing machine. By comparing uniaxial compression test results with scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations, the following was found: (1) The uniaxial compressive strength and elastic modulus of granite under real-time high-temperature conditions initially increase and then decrease as the temperature rises, while the peak strain consistently increases with temperature. (2) Under both cyclic loading–unloading modes, the mechanical properties of granite first improve and then deteriorate as the temperature increases. (3) As the temperature rises, microcracks in granite under both cyclic loading–unloading methods evolve from intracrystalline to intergranular cracks. The fracture surfaces of granite exhibit a significant increase in fracture severity, along with a noticeable rise in both the number and width of cracks. Crack propagation and crystal integrity degradation are more severe and complex in specimens subjected to variable lower limit cyclic loading–unloading than in those under constant-limit cyclic loading–unloading. These findings are of significant theoretical value for studying rock stability under simultaneous high-temperature and cyclic stress conditions.

It is imperative to understand the shear mechanical properties and pore evolution of granite under thermal shock to assess the fracturing of hot dry rock reservoirs. In this study, variable-angle shear tests were performed on coarse- and fine-grained granite samples following liquid nitrogen (LN₂) cooling under different high-temperature conditions. The effect of thermal treatment temperature, particle type, and cooling method on the shear strength, cohesion, and angle of internal friction of granite was then analyzed. To this end, low field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to investigate the pore size distribution and microstructural evolution of granite. The experimental results indicate that both the shear strength and cohesion of granite initially increase and then decrease with the rise in thermal treatment temperature. The maximum increases in shear strength and cohesion are 38.0% and 36.7%, respectively, while the maximum decreases reach 43.7% and 42.4%. Notably, the most pronounced thermal hardening effect is observed at 200 °C. In contrast, the internal friction angle exhibits a decreasing-then-increasing trend as the temperature rises, with a maximum reduction of 5.4% and a maximum increase of 14.5%. In addition, fine-grained granite exhibits superior shear strength and a more pronounced thermal hardening effect compared to coarse-grained granite. Furthermore, the damage effect caused by thermal shock increases with increasing heat treatment temperature, with the damage effect induced by liquid nitrogen cooling being particularly significant compared to water cooling. Furthermore, for both types of granite at the same shear angle, an increase in the heat treatment temperature results in a corresponding increase in the total fracture area, with the fracture area after liquid nitrogen cooling being more significant. The macroscopic failure mode changes from a mixed compression–shear failure mode to a direct shear failure mode with increasing shear angle. NMR testing shows that liquid nitrogen cooling can effectively increase the proportion of medium pores and large pores in the granite and increase the connectivity of internal pores; specifically, in coarse-grained granite, medium pores and large pores collectively increased by 10.5%, while in fine-grained granite, the total increase in medium pores reached 51%. As the heat treatment temperature increases, the type of crack that develops in granite changes from intragranular to transgranular. In addition, the fracture surface of granite is more prone to form micropores and small pores when cooled with liquid nitrogen, increasing the connectivity of the crack network. The results of this research will be useful for fracturing hot dry rock reservoirs.

Thermal stimulation represents an effective method for enhancing reservoir permeability, thereby improving geothermal energy recovery in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). The phase-field method (PFM) has been widely adopted for its proven capability in modeling the fracture behavior of brittle solids. Consequently, a coupled thermo-mechanical phase-field model (TM-PFM) was developed in COMSOL 6.2 Multiphysics to probe thermal fracturing mechanisms in reservoir rocks. The TM-PFM was validated against the analytical solutions for the temperature and stress fields under steady-state heat conduction in a thin-walled cylinder, three-point bending tests, and thermal shock tests. Subsequently, two distinct thermal fracturing modes in reservoir rock under high-temperature conditions were investigated: (i) fracture initiation driven by sharp temperature gradients during instantaneous thermal shocks, and (ii) crack propagation resulting from heterogeneous thermal expansion of constituent minerals. The proposed TM-PFM has been validated through systematic comparison between the simulation results and the corresponding experimental data, thereby demonstrating its capability to accurately simulate thermal fracturing. These findings provide mechanistic insights for optimizing geothermal energy extraction in EGS.

During reservoir stimulation and long-term operation of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGSs), repeated injection of cold fluids induces cyclic thermal shock in the surrounding rock mass, leading to progressive modification of mechanical properties and fracture behavior. However, the combined effects of cyclic thermal shock and true-triaxial stress conditions on granite strength and failure characteristics remain inadequately quantified. In this study, a series of true-triaxial compression tests were conducted on granite specimens subjected to cyclic thermal shock at 400 °C. Thermal shock cycles of 0, 1, 5, 10, and 15 were considered in conjunction with intermediate principal stress levels of 5, 20, 30, and 50 MPa to systematically evaluate their coupled influence on characteristic stresses and macroscopic failure behavior. The results show that the peak intensity increases with the rise of the intermediate principal stress, but with the increase in the number of thermal shocks, it first increases and then decreases. Macroscopic failure is dominated by asymmetric V-shaped fracture surfaces, roughly oriented along the ${\sigma }_2$ direction. As the intermediate principal stress increases, the failure mode transitions from tensile–shear mixed failure to shear-dominated failure, whereas thermal cycling promotes the persistence of tensile–shear cracking even under relatively high ${\sigma }_2$ conditions. Based on these observations, a modified Mogi–Coulomb strength criterion that accounts for thermal shock-induced damage is proposed to describe granite strength under true-triaxial stress conditions. The research results can provide a theoretical basis for optimizing the design of hydraulic fracturing in hot dry rock and evaluating reservoir stability.