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Development of a new physical modeling method to investigate the effect of porosity on the parameters of intact rock failure criteria

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Abstract

Porosity is a critical textural parameter in the complex nature of rock and while it has the highest impact on the strength of intact rock, in the case of oil and gas reservoir rocks, it defines the capacity and permeability of the reservoir. A constant value for triaxial strength factor (mi) of rock failure criterion has been given for each type of sedimentary rocks such as sandstone and the effect of porosity on the mi has not been well defined. Rock is not a homogenous material as with varying the porosity, the other inherent variables also control the strength and the mechanical behavior. Rock porosity varies in a wide range in sedimentary rocks such as sandstone. In this study, the effect of porosity on the parameters of failure criteria (mi) for rock-like materials made from cemented grains is investigated. For sample preparation, a mixture of cement-sand-water was compacted with variable water content to obtain specimens having a wide range of porosities using the same grain size of filler material. Two types of grains including sand and silica filler material were used for the experimental program. Sixteen sets of artificial specimens having porosities from 9.00% to 34.09% have been prepared for two filler materials of sand and silica, while other factors affecting the strength have been kept constant. The triaxial strength test results of these specimens show that the triaxial strength factor (mi) of Hoek et al. failure criterion, internal friction angle (ϕ), and cohesive strength (C) significantly decrease with increasing the porosity. The best-fit curves follow power function with high coefficients of regression.

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Acknowledgments

The authors of this paper would like to thank Mr. V Mohebi technical officer of Rock Mechanics laboratory of Urmia University for his continual assistance in manufacturing devices for modeling specimens.

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  1. Mining Engineering Department, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran

    M. Amiri & H. Moomivand

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  1. M. Amiri
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  2. H. Moomivand
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Correspondence to H. Moomivand.

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Editorial handling: Pinnaduwa Kulatilake

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Amiri, M., Moomivand, H. Development of a new physical modeling method to investigate the effect of porosity on the parameters of intact rock failure criteria. Arab J Geosci 12, 317 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-019-4494-x

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