Pore Volume Compressibility of Unconsolidated Sand Reservoirs: Insights Gained Using Laboratory-Created Sand Pack Analogs

Pore volume compressibility is a fundamental driver of production for unconsolidated sand reservoirs. Prediction of compressibility is desirable when direct measurements on core are not available. Many characteristics of reservoir sands change simultaneously. For this reason, the controls on compressibility are difficult to isolate and interpret. We present the results of compaction experiments using laboratory-created, unconsolidated sands. In these analog sands, we change one textural or mineralogical parameter at a time to investigate the influence of that parameter on the measured compaction properties. Initially, simple quartz grain packs of varying grain sizes were used. Subsequently, additional parameters were investigated, including grain packing, angularity, sorting, feldspar content, ductile grain content, small volumes of dispersed clay, and initial sample preconditioning at stress. Multiple samples of each type were created and tested. This allowed the testing to be halted at several intermediate stresses and the samples to be examined using 2D and 3D imaging and image analysis techniques. For monomineralic quartz sand packs, grain size is a principal control on compressibility. As mean size increases from 150 to 450 μm, peak compressibility increases from 6 to 24 microsips. The depletion stress at which peak compressibility occurs decreases from 8,000 to 2,500 psi. Increasing grain angularity also increases compressibility but with smaller effect. For 150-μm quartz sands, increasing the angularity resulted in an increase in compressibility from 6 microsips for round quartz to 10 microsips for angular quartz and decreased the depletion stress required to achieve peak compressibility from 8,000 to 7,000 psi. As sorting varies from well to moderately poorly sorted, compressibility decreases, and the curve broadens as a function of depletion stress. Adding small volumes of feldspar (or other minerals that cleave) increases the compressibility more than the change resulting from changes in grain size, illustrating the importance of framework grain composition. Adding similar volumes of ductile grains results in a similar increase in compressibility to that observed for feldspar. However, when the size of the ductile grains is larger than that of the associated quartz (e.g., locally derived rip-up clasts), the increase in compressibility is significantly larger. To validate the experimental work, we compare the results of uniaxial pore volume compressibility tests on laboratory-created sands with measurements made on subsurface samples of similar texture and mineralogy. Both the shape of the compressibility curves as well as the magnitude of the compressibility are successfully reproduced. We conclude that laboratory-created sands can provide reasonable proxies for estimating the compressibility of subsurface reservoirs when intact subsurface samples are not available for measurement (e.g., only percussion sidewall samples are acquired) as long as mineralogy and texture are known.

Taming the Janssen effect

We investigate both experimentally and theoretically the apparent mass of a ferromagnetic granular assembly filling a cylindrical container and submitted to a magnetic field B, aligned vertically along the silo. We show that the mass of the ferromagnetic granular column depends strongly on the applied magnetic field. Notably, our measurements deviate strongly from the exponential saturation of the measured mass as a function of the true mass of the grain packing, as predicted by Janssen [H.A. Janssen, Vereins Eutscher Ingenieure Zeitschrift, 1045 (1895)]. In particular, the measured mass of tall columns decreases systematically as the amplitude of the magnetic field increases. We rationalize our experimental findings by considering the induced magnetic dipole-dipole interactions within the whole packing. We show the emergence of a global magnetic radial force along the walls of the silos, fully determined by the external magnetic field. The resulting tunable frictional interactions allows a full control of the effective mass of the ferromagnetic granular column.

Robust experimental study of avalanche precursory events based on reproducible cycles of grain packing destabilizations

Quasi-periodic collective displacements of grains at the free surface of a tilted grain packing constitute precursors of granular avalanches. Laboratory experiments are commonly performed by slowly tilting the packing from 0° to the maximal stability angle θA. In these conditions, the number of precursors is too small to assess reproducible and robust statistical analyses of the precursor activity. To go beyond this limitation, we have developed a specific experimental protocol consisting of tilting the packing with successive oscillation cycles. We use a high-resolution optical camera and process the images of the packing free surface to identify precursory events during many consecutive cycles of a single packing. We observe the same behavior for all half-cycles, forth and back: appearance of the first precursors after the same variation of inclination, exponential evolution of the weak surface activity for the first precursors and linear growth of stronger surface activity for the following ones. The experimental protocol provides both reproducible precursor measurements based on large sample statistical inferences and a quasi-stationary state after one full-cycle. This approach is very promising for highlighting the effects of external parameters, including humidity and packing geometry.