Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials

Abstract Over the last century, the state of stress in the earth’s upper crust has undergone rapid changes because of human activities associated with fluid withdrawal and injection in subsurface formations. The stress dependency of multiphase flow mechanisms in earth materials is a substantial chal...

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Autores principales:	Amir H. Haghi, Richard Chalaturnyk, Martin J. Blunt, Kevin Hodder, Sebastian Geiger
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Nature Portfolio 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/fa0feafcbe3845ba8da1041cc9b2ef34
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:fa0feafcbe3845ba8da1041cc9b2ef342021-12-02T14:11:31ZPoromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials10.1038/s41598-021-82236-x2045-2322https://doaj.org/article/fa0feafcbe3845ba8da1041cc9b2ef342021-02-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-82236-xhttps://doaj.org/toc/2045-2322Abstract Over the last century, the state of stress in the earth’s upper crust has undergone rapid changes because of human activities associated with fluid withdrawal and injection in subsurface formations. The stress dependency of multiphase flow mechanisms in earth materials is a substantial challenge to understand, quantify, and model for many applications in groundwater hydrology, applied geophysics, CO2 subsurface storage, and the wider geoenergy field (e.g., geothermal energy, hydrogen storage, hydrocarbon recovery). Here, we conduct core-scale experiments using N2/water phases to study primary drainage followed by spontaneous imbibition in a carbonate specimen under increasing isotropic effective stress and isothermal conditions. Using X-ray computed micro-tomography images of the unconfined specimen, we introduce a novel coupling approach to reconstruct pore-deformation and simulate multiphase flow inside the deformed pore-space followed by a semi-analytical calculation of spontaneous imbibition. We show that the irreducible water saturation increases while the normalized volume of spontaneously imbibed water into the specimen decreases (46–25%) in response to an increase in effective stress (0–30 MPa), leading to higher residual gas saturations. Furthermore, the imbibition rate decreases with effective stress, which is also predicted by a numerical model, due to a decrease in water relative permeability as the pore-space becomes more confined and tortuous. This fundamental study provides new insights into the physics of multiphase fluid transport, CO2 storage capacity, and recovery of subsurface resources incorporating the impact of poromechanics.Amir H. HaghiRichard ChalaturnykMartin J. BluntKevin HodderSebastian GeigerNature PortfolioarticleMedicineRScienceQENScientific Reports, Vol 11, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Medicine R Science Q
spellingShingle	Medicine R Science Q Amir H. Haghi Richard Chalaturnyk Martin J. Blunt Kevin Hodder Sebastian Geiger Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials
description	Abstract Over the last century, the state of stress in the earth’s upper crust has undergone rapid changes because of human activities associated with fluid withdrawal and injection in subsurface formations. The stress dependency of multiphase flow mechanisms in earth materials is a substantial challenge to understand, quantify, and model for many applications in groundwater hydrology, applied geophysics, CO2 subsurface storage, and the wider geoenergy field (e.g., geothermal energy, hydrogen storage, hydrocarbon recovery). Here, we conduct core-scale experiments using N2/water phases to study primary drainage followed by spontaneous imbibition in a carbonate specimen under increasing isotropic effective stress and isothermal conditions. Using X-ray computed micro-tomography images of the unconfined specimen, we introduce a novel coupling approach to reconstruct pore-deformation and simulate multiphase flow inside the deformed pore-space followed by a semi-analytical calculation of spontaneous imbibition. We show that the irreducible water saturation increases while the normalized volume of spontaneously imbibed water into the specimen decreases (46–25%) in response to an increase in effective stress (0–30 MPa), leading to higher residual gas saturations. Furthermore, the imbibition rate decreases with effective stress, which is also predicted by a numerical model, due to a decrease in water relative permeability as the pore-space becomes more confined and tortuous. This fundamental study provides new insights into the physics of multiphase fluid transport, CO2 storage capacity, and recovery of subsurface resources incorporating the impact of poromechanics.
format	article
author	Amir H. Haghi Richard Chalaturnyk Martin J. Blunt Kevin Hodder Sebastian Geiger
author_facet	Amir H. Haghi Richard Chalaturnyk Martin J. Blunt Kevin Hodder Sebastian Geiger
author_sort	Amir H. Haghi
title	Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials
title_short	Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials
title_full	Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials
title_fullStr	Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials
title_full_unstemmed	Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials
title_sort	poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials
publisher	Nature Portfolio
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/fa0feafcbe3845ba8da1041cc9b2ef34
work_keys_str_mv	AT amirhhaghi poromechanicalcontrolsonspontaneousimbibitioninearthmaterials AT richardchalaturnyk poromechanicalcontrolsonspontaneousimbibitioninearthmaterials AT martinjblunt poromechanicalcontrolsonspontaneousimbibitioninearthmaterials AT kevinhodder poromechanicalcontrolsonspontaneousimbibitioninearthmaterials AT sebastiangeiger poromechanicalcontrolsonspontaneousimbibitioninearthmaterials
_version_	1718391882127507456

Poromechanical controls on spontaneous imbibition in earth materials

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