Effect and mechanism of stresses on rock permeability at different scales

1 Introduction Unlike general solids, rocks are porous materialswhich include different scales of pores, such as pores, cracks, fractures, capillary and disfigurement in the crystal, tiny pores and cracks between crystal grains at micro-scale, in which the fluid is water, oil or gas. Thedifferences between rocks and solids can be seen in two aspects, one is stresses bearing states. Solids are only subjected to external stresses, while rocks are subjected to external stresses σ ij (i, j=1,2,3)…

Effect and mechanism of stresses on rock permeability at different scales

The effect of geo-stress fields on macroscopic hydro-geological conditions or micro-cosmic permeability of water-bearing media should follow some laws or principles. Cases study and tests show that: (1) At macro-geologic large scale, deformed and crashed rocks which were induced by geo-stress fields changing provided space for groundwater storage and flow. Groundwater adjusts water-bearing space and dilatants fractures by flowing and press transferring. Coupling of liquid and solid can be implemented for rocks and groundwater. Although tectonic fields witness several times of change and build-up in geological time, stress fields forming regional tectonic framework are coherent with seepage fields, orientation of the maximum horizontal stress demonstrates main seepage direc-tions. (2) At macro-geologic middle scale, zones of stresses changing sharply, quite low stresses, stress or shear concentration can be used to show locations and types of main fractures, zones of geo-stresses changing equably can be acted as normal base media zones of tri-porosity media. (3) At micro-geologic small scale, tri-porosity media include fractured rocks, porous rocks and capillary rocks. Investigations indicate that porosity or permeability is functions of effective stresses, and po-rosity or permeability changing rules of porous rocks with variation of effective stresses can be de-scribed as the index model, the model of power exponent functions is suitable for those of fractured rocks, the model of the second power parabola for capillary rocks. The porosity and permeability loss in fractured rocks, which are greater than that in porous rocks, are shown by calculation of effective compressive coefficient and closing pressure in cracks. The calculations can also explain the mecha-nism why porosity changes are always larger than permeability changes. It is proved by the thick wall cylinder theory that the second power parabola relation between porosity or permeability loss and effective stresses for capillary rocks is correct.