Effects of Confining Pressure on Gas and Water Permeabilities of Rocks

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Effects of Confining Pressure on Gas and Water Permeabilities of Rocks

M. Zhang1, M. Takeda2, T. Esaki2, M. Takahashi1 and H. Endo1 1

Geological Survey of Japan (Now at Research Center for Deep Geological Environments, AIST, Higashi 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8567, JAPAN, Email: [email protected])

2

Graduate School of Civil Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8581, JAPAN.

ABSTRACT Knowledge of the permeability of hydraulically-tight rock at great depth is crucially important for the design and/or assessment of facilities associated with underground disposal of radioactive nuclear wastes. This paper presents a recently developed laboratory permeability test system capable of testing low permeability rocks either by using air as a permeant or by the transient-pulse method under high confining pressure conditions that simulate ground pressures at depths. The new system was used to test Shirahama sandstone and Inada granite, which are two types of rock widely available in Japan. To investigate the effects of heterogeneity on rock permeability, specimens cored parallel to and perpendicular to bedding for sandstone, and specimens cored in the direction perpendicular to Rift Plane, Grain Plane and Hardway Plane for granite, were used. The results of this study showed that: 1) gas permeabilities of a dried rock specimen tested by air permeation are almost the same values as water permeabilities of the same saturated rock specimen tested by the transient-pulse method; 2) the intrinsic permeabilities of Shirahama sandstone and Inada granite range from about 8.33E-16 to 7.38E-17 m2 and from 1.86E-17 to 6.94E-20 m2, respectively. They decrease monotonously with increase in effective confining pressure (defined as the difference between the confining and pore pressures), while the rate of decrease diminishes at higher confining pressures. The reduction in permeabilities is due to the closure of microcracks that control fluid flow at low confining pressures; and 3) Inada granite is a heterogeneous and isotropic material. Its hydraulic heterogeneity is more significant in Rift Plane than in Hardway and Grain Planes.

INTRODUCTION Knowledge of the permeability of hydraulically-tight rock at great depth is crucially important for the design and/or assessment of facilities associated with underground disposal of radioactive nuclear wastes, storage of oil and LP gas, and CAES. The hydraulic properties of such low-permeability geologic media are also relevant to many geologic processes such as the generation of abnormal subsurface fluid pressures and earthquake occurrence. The accurate and reliable determination of such low permeabilities in the laboratory, however, is not an easy task. Conventional laboratory test methods such as the constant-head and the falling-head techniques estimate the permeability of a saturated specimen by measuring induced flow rates of water under a constant or quasi-constant hydraulic gradient, but these flow rates are too small to monitor reliably when permeabilities are very low [1]. Brace