An Experimental Investigation on the Effects of Temperature and Confining Pressure on the Static and Dynamic Behaviors of Shale Rocks

Abstract To better understand the associated thermal and mechanical effects on the elastic behaviors of shale rocks, we examine the shale rocks at reservoir stress (static) and elastic conditions (dynamic) at varying temperature (25–110°C) and pressure (5–55 MPa) conditions through coupling dynamic–static experimental measurements. The results illustrate that the shale’s P- and S-wave velocities increase with the increasing confining pressure but decrease with the elevated temperature. For the pressure history, ultrasonic P-wave velocities upon hydrostatic unloading are slightly larger than the loading ones, whereas S-wave velocities are almost overlapping together. Meanwhile, the temperature elevation causes much less velocity reduction at a higher confining pressure than lower confining pressure. The measured data demonstrate that the static bulk modulus is more sensitive to the confining pressure than the dynamic bulk modulus. Moreover, with the elevated temperature, the dynamic bulk moduli separate by showing a decreasing trend in either hydrostatic loading or unloading. The loading–unloading cycle shows that the static bulk moduli present values approaching the dynamic ones at all temperature levels when the confining pressure is initially unloaded from the maximum pressure. Both static and dynamic bulk moduli decrease with the continued unloading, with more decrement for the static bulk modulus. The coupling effects of the pressure and temperature on the static and elastic properties of shale samples imply that, in the practical shale reservoir characterization process, temperature and pressure influences should be considered to characterize the relation of dynamic and static properties of shale rocks. The laboratory investigations on shales imply that the relation of dynamic and static properties is pressure dependent mainly due to the intrinsic behavior of fracture, soft pore, and microstructure in the rock frame.