Experimental assessment of the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a shale caprock during CO2 injection

Minardi, Alberto; Stavropoulou, Eleni; Kim, Taeheon; Ferrari, Alessio; Laloui, Lyesse

doi:10.1016/j.ijggc.2020.103225

Cited by 26 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Upon confinement application the sample contracts while after the first CO2 pressure level (scan 02) no significant volumetric activity is measured. Further CO2 pressure increase (scans 03 to 05) results in swelling response, which is attributed to CO2 breakthrough, i.e., breakthrough pressure 2-4 MPa (consistent with [4]). The calculated volumetric maps (Figure 1) reveal an increasing localized swelling activity evolving from the bottom (injection) side of the sample upwards -it is particularly visible in scan 05.…”

Section: Co2 Breakthroughsupporting

confidence: 61%

Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO₂breakthrough

Stavropoulou

Laloui

2020

E3S Web Conf.

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Section: Co2 Breakthroughsupporting

confidence: 61%

Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO₂breakthrough

Stavropoulou

Laloui

2020

E3S Web Conf.

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“…Both intact Opalinus Clay as a caprock representative for CO 2 storage and remolded shale, representing a possible shear zone within the caprock, exhibit the effective sealing capacities specified by their high capillary entry pressure and ultra-low permeability in the nano-Darcy range. Experimental results in the same range are documented for shaly and carbonate facies of Opalinus Clay by Minardi et al (2021), who conducted long-term CO 2 injection experiments (for more than 100 days) and found negligible impacts of plausible chemical reactions on the intrinsic permeability of the samples. Their observations lend support to neglecting potential geochemical interaction in our simulations.…”

Section: Fig 10supporting

confidence: 56%

Two-Phase Flow Mechanisms Controlling CO2 Intrusion into Shaly Caprock

2022

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Geologic carbon storage in deep saline aquifers has emerged as a promising technique to mitigate climate change. CO2 is buoyant at the storage conditions and tends to float over the resident brine jeopardizing long-term containment goals. Therefore, the caprock sealing capacity is of great importance and requires detailed assessment. We perform supercritical CO2 injection experiments on shaly caprock samples (intact caprock and fault zone) under representative subsurface conditions. We numerically simulate the experiments, satisfactorily reproducing the observed evolution trends. Simulation results highlight the dynamics of CO2 flow through the specimens with implications to CO2 leakage risk assessment in field practices. The large injection-induced overpressure drives CO2 in free phase into the caprock specimens. However, the relative permeability increase following the drainage path is insufficient to provoke an effective advancement of the free-phase CO2. As a result, the bulk CO2 front becomes almost immobile. This implies that the caprock sealing capacity is unlikely to be compromised by a rapid capillary breakthrough and the injected CO2 does not penetrate deep into the caprock. In the long term, the intrinsically slow molecular diffusion appears to dominate the migration of CO2 dissolved into brine. Nonetheless, the inherently tortuous nature of shaly caprock further holds back the diffusive flow, favoring safe underground storage of CO2 over geological time scales.

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“…Tensile failure occurs when the effective stress is significantly reduced and below the tensile strength of rock. According to the theory of the first strength of materials, the tensile failure criterion of caprock is defined as follows [10]:…”

Section: Tensile Failure Criterionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to the theoretical analysis of pore elasticity, it is mainly because of the existence of a certain fluid excess pressure in the formation, which caused the complete dissipation time of excess pressure that is relatively large compared with the production time. In other words, the low permeability caprock and bottom layer take a relatively long time to dissipate, which indicate that the key factor of 10 Geofluids the ground surface deformation is the excess pressure in the formation. 8).…”

Section: 22mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, it is necessary to quantitatively characterize the degree of deformation and damage of the caprock during the processes of injection and production and to correctly evaluate its mechanical integrity [8]. At present, most research on the stability of aquifer gas storage caprock has focused on the field of geological sequestration of CO 2 [9,10], with little research on the analysis of caprock mechanical stability in aquifer gas storage. Because there is a wealth of theoretical models available for use in numerical simulations [11][12][13], such studies have been widely used in the analysis of the mechanical stability of caprock.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Coupled Large Scale Hydromechanical Modelling for Caprock Failure Risk Assessment of Gas Storage in Aquifer

et al. 2021

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The rapidly increasing demand for the consumption of natural gas has attracted the interests to store natural gas in aquifer reservoir. However, natural gas injected into the aquifer reservoir, which could cause ground surface deformation and mechanical integrity destruction of caprock. Taking the aquifer gas storage of S trap as the research object, according to the geological structure and hydrogeological information, a coupling large-scale hydromechanical model is established to evaluate the damage risk of the gas reservoir in S aquifer. The proposed methodology is based on the development of fluid-solid coupling and application of FEM. The different failure mechanisms of S aquifer gas storage caprock can be evaluated on the basis of the tensile failure criterion and Mohr-Coulomb shear failure criterion. To analyze the change of caprock in gas injection and production process more clearly, a reference model is defined as an ideal calculation condition to discuss the mechanical response, pore pressure variation, and surface deformation characteristics of the caprock during injection and production. On this basis, the second scheme of sensitivity analysis is defined. The pressure injection rate, reservoir parameters, in situ stress, and other factors are considered, respectively, and the influence of different input parameters on mechanical stability and surface deformation of caprock is analyzed. Finally, the mechanical stability is analyzed and combined the above two criteria to predict the upper limit injection pressure of S. Simulation results show that the permeability and in situ stress have a significant influence on ground surface deformation and mechanical integrity of caprock, but Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio can be ignored; the upper limit pressure coefficient of S is 1.908.

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Experimental assessment of the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a shale caprock during CO2 injection

Cited by 26 publications

References 37 publications

Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO₂breakthrough

Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO₂breakthrough

Two-Phase Flow Mechanisms Controlling CO2 Intrusion into Shaly Caprock

Coupled Large Scale Hydromechanical Modelling for Caprock Failure Risk Assessment of Gas Storage in Aquifer

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Experimental assessment of the hydro-mechanical behaviour of a shale caprock during CO2 injection

Cited by 26 publications

References 37 publications

Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO2breakthrough

Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO2breakthrough

Two-Phase Flow Mechanisms Controlling CO2 Intrusion into Shaly Caprock

Coupled Large Scale Hydromechanical Modelling for Caprock Failure Risk Assessment of Gas Storage in Aquifer

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Product

Resources

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Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO₂breakthrough

Visualising the coupled mechanics of CO₂breakthrough