Experimental Investigation of the Mechanical Behavior and Permeability of 3D Printed Sandstone Analogues Under Triaxial Conditions

Abstract

Consolidated drained triaxial tests arise as one of the most exhaustive methods to quantify the strength, volumetric behavior and failure process of rocks. Understanding the compressibility of a rock matrix and the permeability evolution induced by the effects of confining stress is essential to achieve a better understanding of the productive behavior and performance of enhanced hydrocarbon recovery methods in natural reservoirs. This study investigates the suitability of using of reservoir sandstone analogues, 3D printed with silica sand, to analyze the behavior of natural rocks. A comprehensive mechanical and hydraulic characterization of 3D printed silica sand is addressed by subjecting the sandstone analogues to various levels of confining stress and measuring their cumulative volumetric deformation and permeability evolution at each compression stage. Experimental results demonstrate that 3D printing technology can reproduce porous media that resembles the mechanical behavior of natural reservoir rocks. Nonetheless, some divergences are encountered with the properties of 3D printed analogues when compared to natural reservoir rocks. The 3D printed sandstone analogues were found to be more compressible and permeable than widely studied reservoirs such as Berea Sandstone. Efforts are made to optimize the 3D printing process of the rock analogues to overcome the differences encountered in the mechanical and hydraulic behavior.

Design of Sand‐Based, 3‐D‐Printed Analog Faults With Controlled Frictional Properties

“…In terms of compressive strength, we found a range of values between 10 and 20 MPa, similar to the values obtained by Gomez et al. (2019) on a similar material. The observed values for compressive strength and Young’s modulus are comparable to those of weak sandstones (porosity of ∼25%, Dobereiner & Freitas, 1986; Papamichos et al., 2000).…”

“…Moreover, Gomez et al. (2019) have found an increase of UCS with increasing binder saturation. On the contrary, when they increased the layer thickness from 220 to 400 μm, they measured a significant decrease of UCS.…”

A Systematic Investigation Into the Control of Roughness on the Flow Properties of 3D‐Printed Fractures

“…One avenue to address such challenges is three‐dimensional printing (3DP), a rapid prototyping method capable of producing complex 3D objects from computer‐aided‐design (CAD) geometries (Piovesan et al., 2019). This rapidly evolving technique, coupled with digital rock physics, render this an increasingly popular method to investigate properties akin to natural rocks (e.g., Gomez et al., 2018; Hasiuk et al., 2018; Ishutov et al., 2015; Ishutov et al., 2017; Ju et al., 2014; Sharafisafa et al., 2018; Suzuki et al., 2017; Yazdi et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2018). 3DP can therefore alleviate some uncertainties associated with natural rocks, facilitating systematic investigation into the control of micro/macroscopic heterogeneities on flow properties, thereby bridging the gap between laboratory tests and numerical simulations.…”

Application of 3D Printing Technology in the Mechanical Testing of Complex Structural Rock Masses

“…For example, the combination of technologies of 3DP, stress freezing technique, CT scanning, and X-ray scanning has enabled the quantitative characterization and visualization of complex structures inside deep rock masses [30][31][32][33][34]. Based on this technology, transparent natural sand conglomerate specimens have been produced to investigate the effects of complex structures on the stress field and plastic zone [35,36]. Furthermore, some materials such as polylactic acid (PLA), gypsum, and photosensitive resin have also been used in the preparation of rock-like specimens.…”