THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

TOPOLOGICAL REPRESENTATION OF THE POROUS STRUCTURE AND ITS EVOLUTION OF RESERVOIR SANDSTONE UNDER EXCAVATION-INDUCED LOADS

ABSTRACT
The porous structure of a reservoir rock greatly influences its evolutive deformation and fracture behavior during excavation of natural resources reservoirs. Most numerical models for porous structures have been used to predict the quasi-static mechanical properties, but few are available to accurately characterize the evolution process of the porous structure and its influence on the macroscopic properties of reservoir rocks. This study reports a novel method to characterize the porous structure of sandstone using its topological parameters and to determine the laws that govern the evolutive deformation and failure of the topological structure under various uniaxial compressive loads. A numerical model of the porous sandstone was established based on the pore characteristics that were acquired using computed tomography imaging techniques. The analytical method that integrates the grassfire algorithm and the maximum inscribed sphere algorithm was proposed to create the 3-D topological model of the deformed porous structure, through which the topological parameters of the structure were measured and identified. The evolution processes of the porous structure under various loads were characterized using its equivalent topological model and parameters. This study opens a new way to characterize the dynamic evolution of the pore structure of reservoir sandstone under excavation disturbance.
KEYWORDS
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2017-03-10
PAPER REVISED: 2017-05-01
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2017-05-22
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2017-12-02
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI17S1285J
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2017, VOLUME 21, ISSUE Supplement 1, PAGES [S285 - S292]
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