摘要
Understanding the mechanical and transport behavior of thin(i.e.small aperture)cracks slipping under supercritical carbon dioxide(sc-CO_(2))conditions is essential to evaluate the integrity of sealing formations with buoyant sc-CO_(2)below and the success of waterless fracturing.The two major items of interest in this work are frictional strength and permeability change of the crack.We used a triaxial cell that permits in situ visualization to conduct and monitor slippage along the faces of narrow cracks subjected to triaxial stresses.Such cracks are analogs to small geological faults.We tested carbonate-rich,1-inch diameter Wolfcamp shale samples that are saw cut 30to vertical to create a thin crack.Friction coefficients ranged from about 0.6 to 0.8 consistent with expectations for brittle rocks.The sc-CO_(2)generally did not alter friction coefficient over the time scale of experiments.From a transport perspective,saturating cracks with sc-CO_(2)substantially decreased permeability of the crack by 26%e52%,while slip resulted in a variety of permeability responses.Overall,the combined impact of sc-CO_(2)saturation and slip reduced fault permeability for all tests.Our observations support the notion that the sealing capacity of some caprocks improves when saturated with sc-CO_(2)and that some slip of small fractures is not necessarily detrimental to caprock integrity.
基金
supported as part of the Center for Mechanistic Control of Unconventional Formations(CMC-UF),an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S.Department of Energy,Of-fice of Science under DOE(BES)Award DE-SC0019165
Stanford Nano Shared Facilities(SNSF)with support from NSF under award CMMI-1532224
SNSF is additionally supported by the NSF as part of the National Nanotechnology Coordinated Infrastructure under award ECCS-1542152.
