Investigation on gas migration in saturated materials with low permeability
Résumé
Investigation of the hydro-mechanical effects on gas migration in saturated materials with low permeability
is of great theoretical and practical significances in many engineering fields. The conventional two-phase
flow (visco-capillary flow) theory, which regards the capillary pressure as the only controlling factor in gas
migration processes, is commonly adopted to describe the gas flow in geo-materials. However, formaterials
with lowpermeability, the conventional two-phase flow theory cannot properly describe the gasmigration.
In this work, hydro-mechanical coupled gas injection tests were conducted. The volumetric variation of the
liquid for applying the confining pressure in the specimen cell and the gas flow rate were monitored. Test
results indicate that gas migration is influenced by the capillary pressure and the mechanical stress simultaneously.
The two key parameters of the gas entry pressure Pentry and the gas induced-dilatancy pressure
Pdilatancy are introduced for description of gas migration with respect to the capillary pressure and the mechanical
stress effects, respectively. When the gas injection pressure is smaller than the Pentry and the
Pdilatancy, the balance between the gas injection pressure and the confining pressure will lead to an intermittent
gas flow. Sudden increase of gas flow rate could be observed once the gas injection pressure approaches
the Pentry or the Pdilatancy. For higher gas injection pressures, the mechanical stress effects on gas migration
could not be neglected. The sudden increase of gas flux under high gas injection pressures could be caused
by the mechanical induced-dilatancy of channels, capillary pressure induced-continuous flow pathways, as
well as the failure of sealing-efficiency. The failure of sealing-efficiency is closely related to the difference
between the gas injection pressure and the confining pressure rather than the properties of the material
tested. Monitoring the volume of liquid for applying confining pressure is helpful for detecting the failure
of sealing efficiency and the mechanism of gas breakthrough.
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