Quantitative study on experimentally observed poroelastic behavior of Berea sandstone in two-phase fluid system

Abstract

Coupled two-phase fluid flow and poroelastic deformation of Berea sandstone is studied through laboratory experiment and numerical simulation. In the experiment, compressed air was infiltrated from the bottom of a water-saturated cylindrical Berea sandstone sample under hydrostatic external stress condition. Both axial and circumferential strains at half the height of the sample showed sudden extension and monotonic and gradual extension afterward. Numerical simulation based on thermodynamically consistent constitutive equations was conducted in order to quantitatively analyze the experimental results. In a simulation assuming isotropy of material properties, the volumetric discharge rate of water at the outlet and one of the axial, circumferential, and volumetric strains at half the height of the sample were reproduced well by each parameter set, while the other two strains were not. When introducing transverse isotropy, all the experimental data were reproduced well. In addition, the effect of saturation dependency of Bishop's effective stress coefficient on the deformation behavior of porous media was discussed, and it was found that strains, both axial and circumferential, are sensitive to the coefficient.