Flow properties through a single fracture in Neogene-Quaternary siltstone on effective pressure increasing and decreasing processes

Abstract:

To evaluate flow (or seal) properties of mudstone layers, it is essential to reveal stress conditions at which fractures in mudstone can act as effective flow channels. Dependencies of an effective pressure Pe on a fracture permeability should be examined, because Pe conditions of mudstone layers may change in some cases such as tectonic subsidence and uplifting, or CO2 injection at geological storage processes. The purpose of this study is to reveal how a fracture permeability in mudstone changes at Pe increasing and decreasing processes, and how the features depend on yield stress condition of the rock. This study conducted water permeability tests with Neogene-Quaternary siltstones from the Kazusa Group, Japan; siltstones from the Ohara Formation (OHR3) and the Kiwada Formation (KWD2), of which the yield stress conditions are different from each other. A tensile fracture was artificially made in these cylinder rock specimens, and permeability was measured under several Pe compression-and-decompression cycles with increasing the maximum Pe (2-21 MPa).

All results had two characteristic Pe cycles; a cycle at which differences in permeability between process of compression and decompression become clear (a cycle Y), and a cycle at which the permeability becomes almost the same as the intact rock permeability (a cycle C). The maximum Pe of the cycles C is 5-9 MPa for OHR3 and 17-21 MPa for KWD2, and the maximum Pe of the cycles Y is 5 MPa for OHR3 and 3-9 MPa for KWD2. The maximum Pe conditions for the cycles C almost equal the yield conditions of the intact rocks obtained by isotropic compressional test. While, the cycles Y tend to appear lower pressure conditions than the yield conditions of the intact rocks, which may be because stress at real contact areas is larger than Pe: that is, conditions for fracture closure depend on the yield condition of rock, while conditions for initiation of fracture surface yielding also depend on conditions of fracture occlusion.