Determining the relationship of thermal conductivity and compressional wave velocity of common rock types as a basis for reservoir characterization

Abstract

A comprehensive dataset detailing thermal conductivity and acoustic (compressional) wave velocity of 1430 oven-dry rock samples from clastic sedimentary (sandstone, arkose, greywacke), carbonatic (limestone, marl, dolomite, marble, coquina), plutonic (gabbro, gabbrodiorite, diorite, granodiorite, granite) and volcanic (basalt, andesite, rhyolite) rock types is presented. Correlation of thermal conductivity, compressional wave velocity and porosity are discussed in detail for each tested rock type. The study confirms that thermal conductivity of dry rocks can be predicted from acoustic velocity for porous rock types such as volcanites and sandstones, while non- and low-porous rocks show no to minor trends. With a prediction accuracy ±0.5Wm−1K−1 and a confidence of >80% for sediments and mafic volcanites the calculated data is far more comprehensive than data collected from literature, and is likely accurate enough for most first exploration approaches or geoscientific models before detailed site-scale investigation or modelling is conducted.To investigate the effect of water saturation on thermal conductivity and compressional wave velocity 118 sedimentary samples (arkose and fine-, medium- and coarse sandstones) were saturated in de-aired water and the heat conduction and acoustic velocity were remeasured. The obtained data shows that both thermal conductivity and compressional wave velocity of saturated samples markedly increase in contrast to dry samples. The extent of the thermal conductivity and compressional wave velocity gain is mainly controlled by porosity. Thermal conductivity of saturated samples increases twice as much for higher porous samples than for low porous fine and medium sandstones. In contrast, the gain of compressional wave velocity of saturated sandstones decreases with increasing porosity.