Impact of Confining Stress on Capillary Pressure Behavior During Drainage Through Rough Fractures
Abstract
In this work we study, numerically, the behavior of capillary pressure $$(P_c)$$ during slow immiscible displacement in a rough fracture as a function of the degree of fracture aperture heterogeneity that results from two distinct mechanisms: normal confining stress and fracture surface correlation. We generate synthetic self-affine rough fractures at different correlation scales, solve the elastic contact problem to model the effect of confining stress, and simulate slow immiscible displacement of a wetting fluid by a nonwetting one using a modified invasion percolation model that accounts for in-plane curvature of the fluid-fluid interface. Our modeling results indicate that the power spectral density, $S(f)$, of $$P_c$$, can be used to qualitatively characterize fracture aperture heterogeneity. We show that the distribution of forward avalanche sizes follows a power law $$N_f (S_f)$$ ∝ $$S^{-a}_f$$ , with exponent $$α$$ = 2, in agreement with previously reported values for porous media and equal to the expected theoretical exponent for a self-organized criticality process.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[2];
[3];
[4];
[1]
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Univ. of Minnesota, Twin Cities, MN (United States)
- Wuhan Univ. (China)
- Technical Univ. of Madrid (Spain); Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC); Korea Ministry of Environment (MOE); National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1612956
- Alternate Identifier(s):
- OSTI ID: 1542668
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0018357; 2018002440003
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Geophysical Research Letters
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 46; Journal Issue: 13; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical Union
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 58 GEOSCIENCES; geology; multiphase flow; fractures; roughness; capillary pressure; self‐organized criticality
Citation Formats
Silva, Josimar A., Kang, Peter K., Yang, Zhibing, Cueto‐Felgueroso, Luis, and Juanes, Ruben. Impact of Confining Stress on Capillary Pressure Behavior During Drainage Through Rough Fractures. United States: N. p., 2019.
Web. doi:10.1029/2019gl082744.
Silva, Josimar A., Kang, Peter K., Yang, Zhibing, Cueto‐Felgueroso, Luis, & Juanes, Ruben. Impact of Confining Stress on Capillary Pressure Behavior During Drainage Through Rough Fractures. United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019gl082744
Silva, Josimar A., Kang, Peter K., Yang, Zhibing, Cueto‐Felgueroso, Luis, and Juanes, Ruben. Wed .
"Impact of Confining Stress on Capillary Pressure Behavior During Drainage Through Rough Fractures". United States. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019gl082744. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1612956.
@article{osti_1612956,
title = {Impact of Confining Stress on Capillary Pressure Behavior During Drainage Through Rough Fractures},
author = {Silva, Josimar A. and Kang, Peter K. and Yang, Zhibing and Cueto‐Felgueroso, Luis and Juanes, Ruben},
abstractNote = {In this work we study, numerically, the behavior of capillary pressure $(P_c)$ during slow immiscible displacement in a rough fracture as a function of the degree of fracture aperture heterogeneity that results from two distinct mechanisms: normal confining stress and fracture surface correlation. We generate synthetic self-affine rough fractures at different correlation scales, solve the elastic contact problem to model the effect of confining stress, and simulate slow immiscible displacement of a wetting fluid by a nonwetting one using a modified invasion percolation model that accounts for in-plane curvature of the fluid-fluid interface. Our modeling results indicate that the power spectral density, $S(f)$, of $P_c$, can be used to qualitatively characterize fracture aperture heterogeneity. We show that the distribution of forward avalanche sizes follows a power law $N_f (S_f)$ ∝ $S^{-a}_f$ , with exponent $α$ = 2, in agreement with previously reported values for porous media and equal to the expected theoretical exponent for a self-organized criticality process.},
doi = {10.1029/2019gl082744},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 13,
volume = 46,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2019},
month = {Wed Jul 03 00:00:00 EDT 2019}
}
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Cited by: 11 works
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Figure 1: (a) Example of fracture aperture at low confining stress, σn = 0.02 MPa. Here, we show an aperture field generated from self-affine fracture surfaces with mismatch length scale Lc = L/8. (b) Same as (a) but for a larger confining stress, σn = 0.15 MPa. The white arrowsmore »
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Works referencing / citing this record:
Roughness Control on Multiphase Flow in Rock Fractures
journal, November 2019
- Hu, Ran; Zhou, Chen‐Xing; Wu, Dong‐Sheng
- Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 46, Issue 21
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