Imperial College London
Portrait Picture

Dr Adriana Paluszny

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Reader in Computational Geomechanics
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 7435apaluszn

 
 
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Location

 

RSM 2.48Royal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Lang:2015:10.1002/2015JB011968,
author = {Lang, PS and Paluszny, A and Zimmerman, RW},
doi = {10.1002/2015JB011968},
journal = {Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth},
pages = {4080--4101},
title = {Hydraulic sealing due to pressure solution contact zone growth in siliciclastic rock fractures},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2015JB011968},
volume = {120},
year = {2015}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Thermo-hydro-mechanical–chemical simulations at the pore scale are conducted to study the hydraulic sealing of siliciclastic rock fractures as contact zones grow driven by pressure dissolution. The evolving fluid-saturated three-dimensional pore space of the fracture results from the elastic contact between self-affine, randomly rough surfaces in response to the effective confining pressure. A diffusion–reaction equation controls pressure solution over contact zones as a function of their emergent geometry and stress variations. Results show that three coupled processes govern the evolution of the fracture's hydraulic properties: (1) the dissolution-driven convergence of the opposing fracture walls acts to compact the pore space; (2) the growth of contact zones reduces the elastic compression of the pore space; and (3) the growth of contact zones leads to flow channeling and the presence of stagnant zones in the flow field. The dominant early-time compaction mechanism is the elastic compression of the fracture void space, but this eventually becomes overshadowed by the irreversible process of pressure dissolution. Growing contact zones isolate void space and cause an increasing disproportion between average and hydraulic aperture. This results in the loss of hydraulic conductivity when the mean aperture is a third of its initial value and the contact ratio approaches the characteristic value of one half. Convergence rates depend on small wavelength roughness initially, and on long wavelength roughness in the late time. The assumption of a characteristic roughness length scale, therefore, leads to a characteristic time scale with an underestimation of dissolution rates before, and an overestimation thereafter.
AU  - Lang,PS
AU  - Paluszny,A
AU  - Zimmerman,RW
DO  - 10.1002/2015JB011968
EP  - 4101
PY  - 2015///
SN  - 2169-9356
SP  - 4080
TI  - Hydraulic sealing due to pressure solution contact zone growth in siliciclastic rock fractures
T2  - Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/2015JB011968
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/23540
VL  - 120
ER  -
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