Experimental Study on the Permeability of Quartz Sandstone under Coupled Thermo-Hydromechanical Loading

Abstract

Abstract This paper focuses on the influence of coupled thermo-hydromechanical processes on the permeability of quartz sandstone. The permeability has been studied under five different confining pressures, three different temperatures, and three fluid pressures. The experimental results exhibit that the permeability of quartz sandstone decreases with the increase of confining pressure while it increases with temperature and fluid pressure. The identification of permeability under fully coupled thermo-hydromechanical conditions is also studied via the realization of four coupled tests. One observes that the temperature plays a more important role on the permeability with respect to the fluid pressure. Moreover, the influence of fluid pressure on the permeability of studied sandstone has been amplified by the temperature. The obtained experimental results allow us to get a good understanding of the permeability of quartz sandstone in petroleum engineering and can help us to guarantee the long-term structural stability.