Geochemical Narrowing Of Cement Fracture Aperture During Multiphase Flow Of Supercritical CO2 And Brine

Abstract

For carbon capture and storage operations, wells are used as a necessary conduit for injecting CO2 at depth, but they can also act as leakage conduits if the cement seals are compromised. The specific objective of this research was to experimentally investigate the nature of self-healing of a fracture within cement under multiphase flow of CO2 and brine, and to compare the findings with the predictions of a recently developed model. This was accomplished by flowing a multiphase mixture of supercritical CO2 and brine through a cement fracture. The influent end of the fracture was degraded as evidenced by the formation of cracks across the surface. At the effluent end of the fracture, the initial aperture of 137 μm was reduced to 50 μm. This reduction by 87 μm compared well with an aperture reduction of 80 μm predicted by a recently developed model tested in this study. Self-healing of the fracture contributes to permeability reduction through the potential leakage pathway.

Department(s)

Materials Science and Engineering

Comments

U.S. Department of Energy, Grant DE-AC06-76RLO 1830

Keywords and Phrases

Brine; Fracture; Multiphase-flow; Supercritical-CO 2; Wellbore cement

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

1750-5836

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2023 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Apr 2020

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