Abstract
Rock permeability is a key parameter in evaluating the CO2 storage capacity and injectivity in geologic CO2 sequestration projects. To investigate the influences of confining pressure and testing temperature on rock permeability, seepage tests were carried out on four cylindrical sandstone specimens using a newly developed triaxial permeability measurement system. In this study, the confining pressure was loaded and unloaded stepwise between 10 and 30 MPa at different temperatures (25–90 °C). The experimental results showed that as the effective confining pressure increased in the loading process, sandstone permeability decreased nonlinearly. As the effective confining pressure decreased in the unloading process, permeability increased nonlinearly. Elevated temperature decreased the sandstone permeability, and the percentage reduction in permeability decreased with increasing temperature. Micropore space closure and thermal expansion were evidence of the permeability changes as the confining pressure and testing temperature were varied. The experimental results obtained in the seepage tests under the different confining pressures and elevated testing temperatures provide a reference for evaluating rock permeability in underground engineering.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019QNA04). The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the editor and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which have greatly improved this paper.
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Appendix: List of Symbols
Appendix: List of Symbols
- D :
-
Diameter of specimen
- H :
-
Height of specimen
- m :
-
Mass of specimen
- ρ :
-
Density of specimen
- T :
-
Temperature
- Q :
-
Flow rate
- μ :
-
Gas viscosity
- A :
-
Cross-section area
- P 1 :
-
Injection pressures
- P 2 :
-
Downstream pressure
- p 0 :
-
Atmospheric pressure
- σ 1 :
-
Axial stress
- σ 3 :
-
Confining pressure
- σ e :
-
Effective confining pressure
- D k :
-
Damage rate of permeability
- D σ :
-
Damage rate induced by stress
- D T :
-
Damage rate induced by temperature
- k :
-
Permeability
- k 0 :
-
Initial permeability
- k 1 :
-
Final permeability
- k L :
-
Permeability in the loading process
- k un :
-
Permeability in the unloading process
- k L1 :
-
Permeability in the next loading process
- a, b, c, d:
-
Fitting parameters
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Huang, YH., Yang, SQ. & Teng, SY. Temperature Dependence of the Permeability of Sandstone Under Loading and Unloading Conditions of Confining Pressure. Math Geosci 53, 551–570 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11004-020-09860-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11004-020-09860-7