Numerical investigation of the effective Skempton coefficient in fluid‐saturated fractured rock

Abstract

AbstractCharacterization of hydro‐mechanical processes in reservoir rocks is an essential issue for many geo investigations such as characterization of subsurface fluid flow or geothermal exploitation. For geothermal applications, the role of fractures as storage and transport components of a hydraulic system are highly important. In the present contribution we focus on investigating the effective Skempton coefficient of a damaged porous rock analyzing a modified Cryer problem, which provides a simple model of a porous rock containing a storage and transport pat. The effective Skempton coefficient is defined as the ratio of the increase in mean pore pressure induced by change in confining pressure for undrained boundary conditions. Using approaches from computational homogenization, we evaluate the confining pressure as the negative volume average of the total mean stress. Similarly, we compute the effective fluid pressure in terms of the volume‐averaged fluid pressure in the rocks. We compare the numerical results to those from typical experiments and highlight the problems with the latter. The proposed concept for determination of an effective Skempton coefficient based on numerically evaluated volume averages helps to generate a better understanding of the process‐inherent constituents. (© 2017 Wiley‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)