Mechanical and Acoustic Response of Low-Permeability Sandstone under Multilevel Cyclic Loading-Unloading Stress Paths

Hongying Tan, Hejuan Liu (), Xilin Shi, Hongling Ma, Xiaosong Qiu, Yintong Guo and Shengnan Ban
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Hongying Tan: State Key Laboratory of Coal Mine Disaster and Control, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
Hejuan Liu: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Xilin Shi: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Hongling Ma: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Xiaosong Qiu: Key Laboratory of Underground Storage of Oil and Gas Engineer of China National Petroleum Corporation, Langfang 065007, China
Yintong Guo: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China
Shengnan Ban: State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 19, 1-18

Abstract: Low-permeability sandstone reservoirs have been widely used as a gas storage medium worldwide. Compared with the high porosity and high permeability of sandstone, low-permeability sandstone may present different mechanical (deformation, damage or failure) and acoustic responses under cyclic loading-unloading processes caused by the high-rate injection–production of underground gas storage. In this paper, multistage triaxial loading–unloading tests with a continuously increased upper limit of stress were carried out on low-permeability sandstone under six different confining pressures. The results showed that the superposition of stress–strain curves become much denser in the process of each level of stress. Based on the variation of the elastic modulus of low-permeability sandstone under alternating loads, the mechanical behavior of low-permeability sandstone under cyclic loading is divided into three stages: cyclic hardening, stability and cyclic softening. According to the evolution of acoustic emission (AE) signal parameters, AE counts appear intensively at the initial stage of each level of stress and then gradually stabilize. The peak frequency presents the zonal distribution, which is divided into low-frequency, intermediate-frequency and high-frequency zones. Low confining pressure leads to a small b-value. The RA–AF distribution implies that the mixed tensile–shear cracks are continuously generated in low-permeability sandstone during the cyclic loading process, and the shear cracks are more obviously developed.

Keywords: low-permeability sandstone; multilevel cyclic loading; confining stress; deformation; acoustic emission; microscopic cracks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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