Journal article
Influence of Water Saturation on the Mechanical Behaviour of Low-Permeability Reservoir Rocks
D Zhang, RP Gamage, MSA Perera, C Zhang, WAM Wanniarachchi
Energies | MDPI AG | Published : 2017
DOI: 10.3390/en10020236
Abstract
The influence of water on the mechanical properties of rocks has been observed by many researchers in rock engineering and laboratory tests, especially for sedimentary rocks. In order to investigate the effect of water saturation on the mechanical properties of low-permeability rocks, uniaxial compression tests were conducted on siltstone with different water contents. The effects of water on the strength, elastic moduli, crack initiation and damage thresholds were observed for different water saturation levels. It was found that 10% water saturation level caused more than half of the reductions in mechanical properties. A new approach is proposed to analyze the stress-strain relations at di..
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Funding Acknowledgements
Decheng Zhang would like to acknowledge the financial assistance given by China Scholarship Council towards the cost of living and the tuition fees scholarship given by the Monash University, Australia. The authors are very thankful for the help from Renji Pan and Xiya Fang at the Monash Centre for Electron Microscopy (MCEM). Also the help from Zoltan Csaki and Philip Warnes in the Civil Engineering Laboratory of Monash are appreciated.