Compressed natural rock asphalt

The awareness of the impact of high temperatures on rock properties is essential to the design of deep geotechnical applications. The purpose of this research is to assess the influence of heating and cooling treatments on the physical and mechanical properties of Egyptian granodiorite as a degrading factor. The samples were heated to various temperatures (200, 400, 600, and 800 °C) and then cooled at different rates, either slowly cooled in the oven and air or quickly cooled in water. The porosity, water absorption, P-wave velocity, tensile strength, failure mode, and associated microstructural alterations due to thermal effect have been studied. The study revealed that the granodiorite has a slight drop in tensile strength, up to 400 °C, for slow cooling routes and that most of the physical attributes are comparable to natural rock. Despite this, granodiorite thermal deterioration is substantially higher for quick cooling than for slow cooling. Between 400:600 °C is ‘the transitional stage’, where the physical and mechanical characteristics degraded exponentially for all cooling pathways. Independent of the cooling method, the granodiorite showed a ductile failure mode associated with reduced peak tensile strengths. Additionally, the microstructure altered from predominantly intergranular cracking to more trans-granular cracking at 600 °C. The integrity of the granodiorite structure was compromised at 800 °C, the physical parameters deteriorated, and the rock tensile strength was negligible. In this research, the temperatures of 400, 600, and 800 °C were remarked to be typical of three divergent phases of granodiorite mechanical and physical properties evolution. Furthermore, 400 °C could be considered as the threshold limit for Egyptian granodiorite physical and mechanical properties for typical thermal underground applications.

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Study on the Influence of Geometric Characteristics of Grain Membranes on Permeability Properties in Porous Sandstone

Membranes ◽

10.3390/membranes11080587 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (8) ◽

pp. 587

Author(s):

Run Shi ◽

Huaiguang Xiao ◽

Chengmeng Shao ◽

Mingzheng Huang ◽

Lei He

Keyword(s):

Fluid Flow ◽

Single Parameter ◽

Control Group ◽

Porous Rock ◽

Permeability Characteristics ◽

Natural Rock ◽

Porous Sandstone ◽

Novel Method ◽

Boltzmann Method ◽

Flow Laws

Studying the influence of grain characteristics on fluid flow in complex porous rock is one of the most important premises to reveal the permeability mechanism. Previous studies have mainly investigated the fluid flow laws in complex rock structures using an uncontrollable one single parameter of natural rock models or oversimplified control group models. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes a novel method to reconstruct models that can independently control one single parameter of rock grain membranes based on mapping and reverse-mapping ideas. The lattice Boltzmann method is used to analyze the influence of grain parameters (grain radius, space, roundness, orientation, and model resolution) on the permeability characteristics (porosity, connectivity, permeability, flow path, and flow velocity). Results show that the grain radius and space have highly positive and negative correlations with permeability properties. The effect of grain roundness and resolution on permeability properties shows a strong regularity, while grain orientation on permeability properties shows strong randomness. This study is of great significance to reveal the fluid flow laws of natural rock structures.

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Effect of freeze–thaw cycle on physical and mechanical properties and damage characteristics of sandstone

Scientific Reports ◽

10.1038/s41598-021-91842-8 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Longxiao Chen ◽

Kesheng Li ◽

Guilei Song ◽

Deng Zhang ◽

Chuanxiao Liu

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Properties ◽

Shear Failure ◽

Triaxial Compression ◽

Physical And Mechanical Properties ◽

Freeze Thaw ◽

Damage Characteristics ◽

Large Pore ◽

Natural Rock ◽

Thaw Cycle ◽

Freeze Thaw Cycle

AbstractRock deterioration under freeze–thaw cycles is a concern for in-service tunnel in cold regions. Previous studies focused on the change of rock mechanical properties under unidirectional stress, but the natural rock mass is under three dimensional stresses. This paper investigates influences of the number of freeze–thaw cycle on sandstone under low confining pressure. Twelve sandstone samples were tested subjected to triaxial compression. Additionally, the damage characteristics of sandstone internal microstructure were obtained by using acoustic emission (AE) and mercury intrusion porosimetry. Results indicated that the mechanical properties of sandstone were significantly reduced by freeze–thaw effect. Sandstone’ peak strength and elastic modulus were 7.28–37.96% and 6.38–40.87% less than for the control, respectively. The proportion of super-large pore and large pore in sandstone increased by 19.53–81.19%. We attributed the reduced sandstone’ mechanical properties to the degenerated sandstone microstructure, which, in turn, was associated with increased sandstone macropores. The macroscopic failure pattern of sandstone changed from splitting failure to shear failure with an increasing of freeze–thaw cycles. Moreover, the activity of AE signal increased at each stage, and the cumulative ringing count also showed upward trend with the increase of freeze–thaw number.

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Variations in Permeability and Porosity of Synthetic Oil Reservoir Rock-Methods of Control

Society of Petroleum Engineers Journal ◽

10.2118/1087-pa ◽

1965 ◽

Vol 5 (04) ◽

pp. 329-332 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Larman J. Heath

Keyword(s):

Porous Media ◽

Relative Permeability ◽

Reservoir Rock ◽

Oil Reservoir ◽

Natural Reservoir ◽

Natural Rock ◽

Unconsolidated Sand ◽

Synthetic Rock ◽

Porosity And Permeability ◽

Relative Permeability Curves

Abstract Synthetic rock with predictable porosity and permeability bas been prepared from mixtures of sand, cement and water. Three series of mixes were investigated primarily for the relation between porosity and permeability for certain grain sizes and proportions. Synthetic rock prepared of 65 per cent large grains, 27 per cent small grains and 8 per cent Portland cement, gave measurable results ranging in porosity from 22.5 to 40 per cent and in permeability from 0.1 darcies to 6 darcies. This variation in porosity and permeability was caused by varying the amount of blending water. Drainage- cycle relative permeability characteristics of the synthetic rock were similar to those of natural reservoir rock. Introduction The fundamental behavior characteristics of fluids flowing through porous media have been described in the literature. Practical application of these flow characteristics to field conditions is too complicated except where assumptions are overly simplified. The use of dimensionally scaled models to simulate oil reservoirs has been described in the literature. These and other papers have presented the theoretical and experimental justification for model design. Others have presented elements of model construction and their operation. In most investigations the porous media have consisted of either unconsolidated sand, glass beads, broken glass or plastic-impregnated granular substances-materials in which the flow behavior is not identical to that in natural reservoir rock. The relative permeability curves for unconsolidated sands differ from those for consolidated sandstone. The effect of saturation history on relative permeability measurements A discussed by Geffen, et al. Wygal has shown quite conclusively that a process of artificial cementation can be used to render unconsolidated packs into synthetic sandstones having properties similar to those of natural rock. Many theoretical and experimental studies have been made in attempts to determine the structure and properties of unconsolidated sand, the most notable being by Naar and Wygal. Others have theorized and experimented with the fundamental characteristics of reservoir rocks. This study was conducted to determine if some general relationship could be established between the size of sand grains and the porosity and permeability in consolidated binary packs. This paper presents the results obtained by changing some of the factors which affect the porosity and permeability of synthetically prepared sandstone. In addition, drainage relative permeability curves are presented. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE Mixtures of Portland cement with water and aggregate generally are designed to have certain characteristics, but essentially all are planned to be impervious to water or other liquids. Synthetic sandstone simulating oil reservoir rock, however, must be designed to have a given permeability (sometimes several darcies), a porosity which is primarily the effective porosity but quantitatively similar to natural rock, and other characteristics comparable to reservoir rock, such as wettability, pore geometry, tortuosity, etc. Unconsolidated ternary mixtures of spheres gave both a theoretically computed and an experimentally observed minimum porosity of about 25 per cent. By using a particle-distribution system, one-size particle packs had reproducible porosities in the reproducible range of 35 to 37 per cent. For model reservoir studies of the prototype system, a synthetic rock having a porosity of 25 per cent or less and a permeability of 2 darcies was required. The rock bad to be uniform and competent enough to handle. Synthetic sandstone cores mere prepared utilizing the technique developed by Wygal. Some tight variations in the procedure were incorporated. The sand was sieved through U.S. Standard sieves. SPEJ P. 329ˆ

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