Numerical interpretation of gas-injection tests at different scales

To investigate gas-migration processes in saturated low-permeability argillaceous rocks, gas-injection tests under different injection pressures were carried out at different scales: on core samples at the laboratory scale; in the packed-off section of boreholes at the borehole scale (HG-B); and in the sealed microtunnel at the tunnel scale (HG-A) – a 1:2 scale experiment at the Mont Terri Rock Laboratory, Switzerland. All three tests at the Mont Terri Rock Laboratory involved Opalinus Clay. A fully coupled hydromechanical model has been developed that takes account of elastic and plastic anisotropies, anisotropic two-phase flow based on the van Genuchten function, and permeability changes when evaluating the experimental data. Two different flow regimes were studied: two-phase flow under low gas-injection pressure and dilatancy-controlled gas flow under high gas-injection pressure above the confining pressure in the laboratory experiment or the minimal principal stress in situ . When dealing with the dilatancy-controlled gas-flow regime, special consideration was made by applying two permeability approaches in which (i) the permeability change was pore-gas-pressure dependent and (ii) where the permeability change was deformation dependent. Using the parameter values determined by laboratory data, the in situ borehole tests obtained under well-defined hydromechanical conditions could be analysed accordingly. The gas-flow regime in large-scale experiments, as in the case of HG-A, is mainly governed by experimental circumstances: in this case, the excavation-induced fractures around an opening with a permeability four order of magnitude higher than that in the undisturbed rock mass.