Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Arma 2019 0409
Arma 2019 0409
Arma 2019 0409
ABSTRACT: In order to assess the performance of radioactive waste repository in argillite, the investigation of gas migration
properties is indispensable. In this work the pore space morphological model is generated through union of excursions of Gaussian
random fields with respect to the experimental pore size distributions. Pore space characteristics are investigated through purely
geometric analysis using morpho-mathematical operations. This paper firstly gives a brief review on the model generation and the
simulation of gas breakthrough process in COx argillite, then focuses on the water imbibition process induced by the gas pressure
reduction after breakthrough. Several important parameters such as the gas shut-off pressure, the imbibing water saturation and the
residual gas saturation are numerically predicted.
threshold of 9MPa or the fracture threshold of 12MPa
1. SUBMISSION AND TEMPLATE DETAILS
(Andra 2005).
In France, low-permeable and deeply seated Callovo-
Following the gas breakthrough, the sudden release of
Oxfordian (COx) argillite in departments of Haute-
gas pressure at the generation source may lead to a water
Marne and Meuse is investigated by ANDRA (French
re- imbibition process (Hildenbrand & al. 2002 & 2004;
National Radioactive Waste Management Agency) as a
Gerard & al. 2008). Interconnected gas migration
potential host rock candidate for the long-term
pathways would be progressively closed. In view of this,
radioactive waste repository (Fouché & al. 2004). For a
another experimental scenario for the investigation of
long period, the continuous production of hydrogen is
gas sealing efficiency of low-permeable rock has been
inevitable due to the humid corrosion of metallic
proposed (Hildenbrand & al. 2004; Gerard & al. 2008).
structures, the degassing process in clay formation, the
Traditional methods based on the drainage process until
radioactive waste decomposition and the water radiolysis
the breakthrough require a long duration to avoid the
(Horseman & al. 1999; Davy & al. 2009)
overestimation of gas breakthrough threshold. This
This work concerns only the capillary-induced two- scenario is to impose a higher gas pressure than the
phase flow. As introduced in “Part I: gas breakthrough in expected gas breakthrough pressure on the upstream side
COx argillite, Boom clay and Opalinus clay”, gas of initially saturated sample. Thus the gas breakthrough
migration involves the creation and the propagation of rapidly occurs. Subsequently, the pressure increase on
preferential pathways related to the pore space the downstream side can lead to a water imbibition
morphology. Numerically, pore space models of COx process. Gas permeability begins to decrease. After the
argillite are generated based on experimental pore size close of the last interconnected pathways, gas leakage
distributions obtained from different methods (water stops and a residual pressure difference is obtained to
adsorption, mercury injection and nuclear magnetic evaluate the gas sealing capacity of the studied material.
resonance). Among them, WA (water adsorption) model
Some important parameters noted during the drainage
shows the best agreement with the experimental gas
process and the water imbibition process are
breakthrough pressure (percolation threshold) between 4
summarized in figure 1. The effective gas permeability
- 5 MPa (Andra 2009a). It is lower than the micro- crack
varies with time and firstly reaches a peak value then
drops to 0 when the pressure difference remains stable. !
5
𝑉! = 𝑀! − 𝑉! = 𝑀! − 𝑀! ∘ 𝐸! When gas pressure is finally removed, the residual gas
saturation can be defined as the proportion of the total
Following this, a geodesic reconstruction from the
erased isolated pores. Following this scenario, for a gas
downstream side provides the real imbibition pathways
pressure 𝑃! , the corresponding water imbibition
𝑉! and the corresponding imbibing water saturation (fig.
pathways 𝑊𝐼𝑃! and the new build initial image 𝑀! are
9e), thus:
given as:
𝑉! = 𝑅 ! 𝑉 ! = 𝑅 ! 𝑀! − 𝑀! ∘ 𝐸!
𝑊𝐼𝑃! = 𝑅 ! 𝑀!!! − 𝑀!!! ∘ 𝐸!
Subsequently, another logic subtraction is performed
𝑀! = 𝑅 ! 𝑀!!! − 𝑅 ! 𝑀!!! − 𝑀!!! ∘ 𝐸!
between the initial image 𝑀! and the image (e) to wipe
𝑉! = 𝑅 ! 𝑉! = 𝑅 ! 𝑀! − 𝑅 ! 𝑀! − 𝑀! ∘ 𝐸!
At the last step, imbibition pathways are combined with
the image (g) thus leads to a new image 𝑀! (fig. 9h).
Apparently, isolated pores are finally removed. The
iteration with continuously decreasing gas pressure will
be performed by using the new generated initial image
𝑀!Figure
. 8: Illustration of isolated pores by the imbibing water phase. Fig. 10: Realizations of water imbibition process with
Figure 10: Realizations of water imbibition process with decreasing gas pressure in a totally drained model; gas pressure decreases from left to
right.