Experimental Investigation on Physical and Mechanical Properties of Granite Subjected to Cyclic Heating and Liquid Nitrogen Cooling

Liquid nitrogen is a type of super-cryogenic fluid, which can cause the reservoir temperature to decrease significantly and thereby induce formation rock damage and cracking when it is injected into the wellbore as fracturing fluid. An experimental set-up was designed to monitor the acoustic emission signals of coal during its contact with cryogenic liquid nitrogen. Ultrasonic and tensile strength tests were then performed to investigate the effect of liquid nitrogen cooling on coal cracking and the changes in mechanical properties thereof. The results showed that acoustic emission phenomena occurred immediately as the coal sample came into contact with liquid nitrogen. This indicated that evident damage and cracking were induced by liquid nitrogen cooling. During liquid nitrogen injection, the ring-down count rate was high, and the cumulative ring-down counts also increased rapidly. Both the ring-down count rate and the cumulative ring-down counts during liquid nitrogen injection were much greater than those in the post-injection period. Liquid nitrogen cooling caused the micro-fissures inside the coal to expand, leading to a decrease in wave velocity and the deterioration in mechanical strength. The wave velocity, which was measured as soon as the sample was removed from the liquid nitrogen (i.e. the wave velocity was recorded in the cooling state), decreased by 14.46% on average. As the cryogenic samples recovered to room temperature, this value increased to 18.69%. In tensile strength tests, the tensile strengths of samples in cooling and cool-treated states were (on average) 17.39 and 31.43% less than those in initial state. These indicated that both during the cooling and heating processes, damage and cracking were generated within these coal samples, resulting in the acoustic emission phenomenon as well as the decrease in wave velocity and tensile strength.

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Differences in petrophysical and mechanical properties between low- and middle-rank coal subjected to liquid nitrogen cooling in coalbed methane mining

Journal of Energy Resources Technology ◽

10.1115/1.4052614 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

Menglin Du ◽

Feng Gao ◽

Chengzheng Cai ◽

Shanjie Su ◽

Zekai Wang

Keyword(s):

Mechanical Properties ◽

Pore Structure ◽

Liquid Nitrogen ◽

Coalbed Methane ◽

Bituminous Coal ◽

Thermal Damage ◽

Physical And Mechanical Properties ◽

Damage Degree ◽

Lignite Coal ◽

The Difference

Abstract Exploring the damage differences between different coal rank coal reservoirs subjected to liquid nitrogen (LN2) cooling is of great significance to the rational development and efficient utilization of coalbed methane. For this purpose, the mechanical properties, acoustic emission (AE) characteristics and energy evolution law of lignite and bituminous coal subjected to LN2 cooling were investigated based on the Brazilian splitting tests. Then, pore structure changes were analyzed to reveal the difference in the microscopic damage between lignite and bituminous coal after LN2 cooling. The results showed that compared with bituminous coal, the pore structure of lignite coal changed more obviously, which was manifested as follows: significant increases in porosity, pore diameters, and pore area; a larger transformation from micropores and transition pores to mesopores and macropores. After LN2 cooling, the thermal damage inside lignite and bituminous coal was 0.412 and 0.069, respectively. The thermal damage reduced the cohesive force between mineral particles, leading to the deterioration of the macroscopic physical and mechanical properties. Simultaneously, denser AE ringing counts and larger accumulated ringing counts were observed after LN2 cooling. Moreover, the random distribution of thermal damage enhanced the randomness of the macrocrack propagation direction, resulting in an increase in the crack path tortuosity. With more initial defects inside coal, a more obvious thermal damage degree and wider damage distribution will be induced by LN2 cooling, leading to more complicated crack formation paths and a higher fragmentation degree, such as that of lignite coal.

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