TY - JOUR
T1 - Viscous Behavior of Clay-Rich Rocks and Its Role in Focused Fluid Flow
AU - Yarushina, Viktoriya M.
AU - Makhnenko, Roman Y.
AU - Podladchikov, Yuri Y.
AU - Wang, L. Hongliang
AU - Räss, Ludovic
N1 - Funding Information:
The data and software are available upon request by contacting the corresponding author. Christophe Nussbaum and swisstopo are acknowledged for providing Opalinus Clay cores. V. Yarushina and L. Hongliang Wang are funded by the Norwegian Research Council (grants 280567 and 309646), AkerBP ASA, Equinor Energy AS, and Wintershall DEA Norway AS. R. Makhnenko acknowledges support from the U.S. Department of Energy through CarbonSAFE Illinois Corridor Project DE-FE0031892. Y. Podladchikov and V. Yarushina acknowledge support from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (grant 075-15-2019-1890). L. Räss and Y. Podladchikov acknowledge the Swiss Geocomputing Centre, University of Lausanne, for access to the computing infrastructure used within this study. The valuable comments from Harro Schmeling and an anonymous reviewer, which helped to improve the manuscript, are greatly appreciated.
Funding Information:
The data and software are available upon request by contacting the corresponding author. Christophe Nussbaum and swisstopo are acknowledged for providing Opalinus Clay cores. V. Yarushina and L. Hongliang Wang are funded by the Norwegian Research Council (grants 280567 and 309646), AkerBP ASA, Equinor Energy AS, and Wintershall DEA Norway AS. R. Makhnenko acknowledges support from the U.S. Department of Energy through CarbonSAFE Illinois Corridor Project DE‐FE0031892. Y. Podladchikov and V. Yarushina acknowledge support from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (grant 075‐15‐2019‐1890). L. Räss and Y. Podladchikov acknowledge the Swiss Geocomputing Centre, University of Lausanne, for access to the computing infrastructure used within this study. The valuable comments from Harro Schmeling and an anonymous reviewer, which helped to improve the manuscript, are greatly appreciated.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Focused fluid flow is common in sedimentary basins worldwide, where flow structures often penetrate through sandy reservoir rocks, and clay-rich caprocks. To better understand the mechanisms forming such structures, the impacts of the viscoelastic deformation and strongly nonlinear porosity-dependent permeability of clay-rich materials are assessed from an experimental and numerical modeling perspective. The experimental methods to measure the poroviscoelastic and transport properties of intact and remolded shale have been developed, and the experimental data is used to constrain the numerical simulations. It is demonstrated that viscoelastic deformation combined with nonlinear porosity-dependent permeability triggers the development of localized flow channels, often imaged as seismic chimneys. The permeability inside a channel increases by several orders of magnitude compared to the background values. In addition, the propagation time scale and the channel size strongly depend on the material properties of the fluid and the rock. The time-dependent behavior of the clay-rich rock may play a key role in the long-term integrity of the subsurface formations.
AB - Focused fluid flow is common in sedimentary basins worldwide, where flow structures often penetrate through sandy reservoir rocks, and clay-rich caprocks. To better understand the mechanisms forming such structures, the impacts of the viscoelastic deformation and strongly nonlinear porosity-dependent permeability of clay-rich materials are assessed from an experimental and numerical modeling perspective. The experimental methods to measure the poroviscoelastic and transport properties of intact and remolded shale have been developed, and the experimental data is used to constrain the numerical simulations. It is demonstrated that viscoelastic deformation combined with nonlinear porosity-dependent permeability triggers the development of localized flow channels, often imaged as seismic chimneys. The permeability inside a channel increases by several orders of magnitude compared to the background values. In addition, the propagation time scale and the channel size strongly depend on the material properties of the fluid and the rock. The time-dependent behavior of the clay-rich rock may play a key role in the long-term integrity of the subsurface formations.
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U2 - 10.1029/2021GC009949
DO - 10.1029/2021GC009949
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85118205185
VL - 22
JO - Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
JF - Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
SN - 1525-2027
IS - 10
M1 - e2021GC009949
ER -