Experimental Investigation of Permeability Evolution on Sandstone in Triaxial and Long-Term Dissolution Experiment

Abstract

The temporal permeability and damage evolutions of low-permeability sandstone cores during triaxial and long-term dissolution experiments were measured using a triaxial-flow system. Three triaxial experiments were performed on sandstone cores having initial permeability ranging from 78×10−18 m2 to 120×10−18 m2. Two sets of long-term dissolution experiments were conducted on cracked sandstone cores. All dissolution experiments were performed at room temperature and using a 10 g/L H2SO4 and 0.2 g/L H2O2 input solution. Permeability evolution was determined using Darcy’s law. The cores experienced an average increase of 25% in permeability in the dissolution experiment and 900%~1500% increase at the end of the experiment. The dissolution was fairly homogeneous during the long-term experiments whether on the 1 mm scale or the 10 μm scale. The relationship between damage and permeability was speculated and its correlation coefficient has been proved to be close to 1. These results suggest that hydraulic fracturing works well in permeability increase in low-permeability sandstone reservoir.