Abstract
In this study, thermal conductivities of 128 rock samples located in the Xiong’an New Area and Tarim Basin were measured using the optical scanning and transient plane source methods. The thermal conductivities of the Xiong’an New Area samples range from 1.14 to 6.69 W/(m·K), in which the mean thermal conductivities of dolomite and sandstone are 4.95 ± 1.19 and 1.80 ± 0.44 W / m · K , respectively. In the Tarim Basin, sandstone samples have thermal conductivities ranging from 1.21 to 3.56 W/(m·K) with a mean value of 2.51 ± 0.66 W / m · K . The results can provide helpful reference data for studies of geothermics and petroleum geology. Calculation correction and water-saturated measurements were conducted to acquire in situ rock thermal conductivity, and good consistency was found between both. Compaction diagenesis enhances bulk thermal conductivity of sedimentary rocks, particularly sandstones, by decreasing the rock porosity and mineral particle size. Finally, correction factors with respect to mineral grains were proposed to correct the thermal resistance of intergrain contacts and degree of intactness of crystals, and an optimized formula was adopted to calculate the thermal conductivity of sedimentary rock based on rock structure and mineral constituents.
Highlights
Thermal conductivity directly characterizes rock’s heat conduction capacity and plays an important role in the present thermal conditions including surface heat flow, geothermal field distribution, deep thermal structure, and thermal simulation, and it is a significant parameter in engineering projects such as the construction of high-level radioactive waste repositories, buried heat exchangers of the ground source heat pump, tunnels construction, and oil, gas, and geothermal energy exploration [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
Rock samples used for measurements of thermal conductivity were from the Xiong’an New Area and Tarim Basin
128 samples were collected from the Xiong’an New Area and Tarim Basin located in North and Northwest China, respectively
Summary
Thermal conductivity directly characterizes rock’s heat conduction capacity and plays an important role in the present thermal conditions including surface heat flow, geothermal field distribution, deep thermal structure, and thermal simulation, and it is a significant parameter in engineering projects such as the construction of high-level radioactive waste repositories, buried heat exchangers of the ground source heat pump, tunnels construction, and oil, gas, and geothermal energy exploration [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. It still lacks completed measurement methods to get the in situ thermal conductivity, so laboratory-measured results have been used to make corrections. Several factors, such as mineral composition, structure, porosity, moisture content, temperature, and pressure influence the rock thermal conductivity [7, 9, 10]. Rock samples used for measurements of thermal conductivity were from the Xiong’an New Area and Tarim Basin. These two sampling areas have different geological conditions. The Xiong’an New Area belongs to rift basin background and the Tarim Basin belongs to craton basin background.
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