Permeability evolution of two sedimentary rocks at different temperatures based on the Katz-Thompson theory

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijrmms.2021.104819Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous researchers have shown that the Katz–Thompson theory is useful in predicting permeability of sedimentary rock from mercury intrusion porosimetry data. In this paper, the variations in pore characteristics of sandstone and limestone in the temperature range of 25 °C–600 °C are studied based on mercury injection test and the permeability evolution is also analyzed. The results show that the permeability of sandstone fluctuates and can be described as a small fluctuation from 25 °C to 400 °C, followed by a gradual increase from 400 °C to 570 °C and then a rapid increase from 570 °C to 600 °C. The permeability of limestone is almost constant from 25 °C to 400 °C and is rapidly increased from 400 °C to 600 °C. There is a critical temperature threshold that is 570 °C and 400 °C for sandstone and limestone respectively, and the critical pore diameter increases rapidly when this threshold is exceeded. The permeability increases rapidly at temperature up to a critical threshold. The volume percentage of big holes (1 μm < Φ < 10 μm) plays a decisive role in the permeability evolution of sandstone and the volume percentage of larger holes (Φ > 10 μm) plays a decisive role in the permeability evolution of limestone. These findings offer helpful suggestions on the estimation and analysis of rock permeability.

Introduction

Permeability is a key parameter to describe the transport properties of rocks.1,2 In recent years, the physical and mechanical properties of rocks subjected to high temperature have become a focus in research, and the research on the permeability of rocks after heat treatment is significant for various engineering applications, such as radioactive waste disposal,3, 4, 5, 6 fossil fuel exploitation,7,8 geothermal energy extraction,9,10 CO2 geological sequestration,11, 12, 13 and underground coal gasification.14

Until now, research on rock permeability has mainly concentrated on the influence of stress level, chemical effects, pressure and temperature conditions, and coupled processes.15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Particularly, the influence of temperature on rock permeability has been extensively investigated. There are various methods to measure the rock permeability, such as the steady-state fluid flow method, transient fluid flow method and oscillating pore pressure method.22, 23, 24 The test methods require strict conditions and the test procedure is usually time-consuming. In addition, the measured apparent gas permeability of tight rocks is different from the intrinsic permeability that is largely determined by pore geometry, such as porosity, pore size distribution and pore shape due to Klinkenberg effect.25 A number of theories and models have also been proposed relating the permeability of porous media to their microstructural parameters.10,26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31 Katz–Thompson theory has been proved to be useful for evaluating the permeability of sedimentary rocks and cementitious materials using mercury intrusion porosimetry data.32, 33, 34, 35, 36 EL-Dieb and Hooton36 investigated the applicability of Katz-Thompson theory in predicting the permeability of cementitious materials. Liu et al.37 evaluated the permeability of sandstone and mudstone using the pore size distribution of the rock specimens based on the Katz–Thompson model.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the permeability of two sedimentary rocks after high temperature exposure based on the mercury intrusion porosimetry data. The micro-characteristics of thermal defects in rocks are also revealed via X-ray diffraction (XRD), pore characteristics and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results are important for estimating the permeability of sandstone and limestone using Katz–Thompson model.

Section snippets

Experiment preparation and testing methods

Sandstone and limestone samples were collected from a borehole in Shandong Province in China. The main components of samples were inferred from the X-ray diffraction analysis at 25 °C. The basic physical properties of the two sedimentary rocks are listed in Table 1. First, the samples were heated to specified temperature (25 °C, 100 °C, 200 °C, 340 °C, 400 °C, 570 °C, 600 °C) at a rate of 5 °C/min using a CTM300A high temperature furnace (Xuzhou Weike Technology Co., Ltd, China). The samples

Test results and analysis

Fig. 2a shows the variations in porosity, permeability, and critical pore diameter (dc) of sandstone at different temperatures. It can be observed that the porosity and permeability have a small fluctuation from 25 °C to 400 °C, followed by a gradual increase from 400 °C to 570 °C and then a rapid increase from 570 °C to 600 °C. Overall, the porosity is increased by 23% (from 7.78% to 9.60%) from 400 °C to 600 °C and the permeability is increased by 250% (from 0.12 to 0.42 mD) from 400 °C to

Discussion

The sedimentary rock is composed of mineral particles with different thermal expansion coefficients and thermoelastic characteristics. The thermal stress is formed due to the inhomogeneous thermal expansion of mineral particles subjected to high temperature.42,43 In addition, minerals in rocks also decompose at certain temperatures. Consequently, microcracks generate and expand in rocks.

Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images of sandstone and limestone samples subjected to thermal treatments

Conclusions

This paper examines the thermal effects on porosity, pore size distribution and permeability of two sedimentary rocks after exposure to different temperatures. A comprehensive analysis at micro scale is carried out by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP). Based on Katz–Thompson model, the permeability of heated rock samples is evaluated using mercury intrusion porosimetry data and the evolution pattern of permeability is

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51674240), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2020ZDPYZD03), State Key Laboratory for GeoMechanics and Deep Underground Engineering open foundation (SKLGDUEK1413), and the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD).

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