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Laboratory Investigation of Coal Deformation Behavior and Its Influence on Permeability Evolution During Methane Displacement by CO2

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Abstract

Geological sequestration of CO2 in coal seams is of significant interest to both academia and industry. A thorough laboratory investigation of mechanical and flow behaviors is crucial for understanding the complex response of coalbeds to CO2 injection-enhanced coalbed methane recovery (CO2-ECBM) operation. In this work, systematic experiments were carried out on cylindrical coal core specimens under different uniform confining stresses. The coal deformation caused by variations in effective stress as well as the sorption-induced matrix swelling/shrinkage was monitored. The competitive gas sorption characteristics and permeability evolution during the process of methane displacement by CO2 were also investigated. The measured volumetric strain results indicate that sorption-induced strain is the dominant factor in the coal deformation. The relationship between the volumetric strain and the adsorbed gas volume has been revealed to be a linear function. Experimental results obtained under different stress conditions suggest that higher confining stress suppresses the increase in both volumetric strain and the adsorbed gas volume. Furthermore, both methane displacement and CO2 injection are reduced when applying higher confining stresses. In addition, the permeability enhancement is heavily suppressed at higher confining stress. At a certain confining stress, a characteristic “U-shaped” trend of permeability is presented as a function of decreasing pore pressure. This study contributes to the understanding of coal deformation and its impact on permeability evolution under uniformly stressed condition, which has practical significance for CO2 sequestration and CO2-ECBM operation in the Qinshui basin.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project of China under Award Numbers 2011ZX05042-003-001 and 2011ZX05034-005. The authors are grateful to Co-Editor Dr. Herbert Einstein and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable and constructive comments in improving the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Geoscience and Surveying Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), Beijing, 100083, China

    Jingjing Fan & Yanbin Wang

  2. Department of Mining and Mineral Resources Engineering, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL, 62901, USA

    Ruimin Feng

  3. Key Laboratory of Shale Gas Exploration, Ministry of Land and Resources, Chongqing Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, Chongqing, 400042, China

    Jin Wang

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  1. Jingjing Fan
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  2. Ruimin Feng
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  3. Jin Wang
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  4. Yanbin Wang
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Correspondence to Ruimin Feng.

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Fan, J., Feng, R., Wang, J. et al. Laboratory Investigation of Coal Deformation Behavior and Its Influence on Permeability Evolution During Methane Displacement by CO2 . Rock Mech Rock Eng 50, 1725–1737 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1193-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00603-017-1193-3

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