Staff profile

James Kear is a civil and environmental engineer and is the Hydraulic Fracturing Research Team Leader in the Onshore Gas Research Program at CSIRO. He has research experience in the fields of hydraulic fracturing, rock mechanics, sustainable design and systems thinking.

James is an accomplished experimentalist with expertise in the areas of hydraulic fracturing, shale chemoporomechanical behaviour and material property testing. Specifically his experimental hydraulic fracturing work examines interactions between closely spaced fractures, hydraulic fracture interface crossing behaviour (height growth), fracture initiation and re-orientation and fracturing of wellbore annuli. James’ shale chemo-poro-mechanical experimental work focuses on characterisation of relevant material properties which control shrinking and swelling behaviour of gas and oil shales when exposed to various water based fluids. James’ experimental work also encompasses novel uses of acoustic emissions data, three-dimensional reconstruction of fracture networks and optimisation of photometric and optical data analysis methods.