Effect of damage on gas seepage behavior of sandstone specimens

Abstract

In underground engineering, such as geological CO2 sequestration, unconventional oil and gas exploration, and radioactive waste storage, permeability of rock is important to evaluate the potential CO2 storage capacity, improve oil and gas production, and prevent leakage of radioactive waste. In this study, hydrostatic stress tests and triaxial compression tests with gas permeability measurements were carried out on intact and damaged sandstone specimens. Three series of experiment were designed to evaluate the permeability evolution laws of sandstone under different testing conditions. They included triaxial seepage tests on intact specimens under different confining pressures, triaxial seepage tests on damaged specimens with different extents of damage, and hydrostatic seepage tests on damaged specimens under increasing and decreasing gas pressures. Based on the experimental results, the effects of effective confining pressure, extent of damage and increasing and decreasing gas pressure on permeability of sandstone were investigated. It shows that the permeability of the intact sandstone specimens first decreased and then increased, followed by a constant value with increase in axial strain. The permeability of the sandstone specimens was observed to decrease with increase in effective confining pressure. The extent of damage affects the permeability evolution, but does not influence the failure patterns of damaged sandstone. As the gas pressure increased, the permeability of the damaged sandstone specimen increased. Under the same gas pressure condition, the permeability during the decreasing process is generally higher than that during the increasing process. These experiments are expected to enhance our understanding of seepage behavior in underground rock masses.