Heavy oil production depends on the understanding of mechanical and flow properties of unconsolidated or weakly consolidated sands under different loading paths and boundary conditions. Reconstituted bitumen-free Athabasca oil-sands samples were used to investigate the geomechanics of a steam injection process such as the Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD). Four stress paths have been studied in this work: triaxial compression, radial extension, pore pressure increase and isotropic compression. Absolute permeability, end-point relative permeability to oil & water (kro and krw), initial water saturation and residual oil saturation were measured while the samples deformed. Triaxial compression is a stress path of increasing mean stress while radial extension and pore pressure increase lead to decreasing mean stress. Pore pressure increase experiments were carried out for three initial states: equal axial and confining stresses, axial stress greater than confining stress and confining stress greater than axial stress. Pore pressure was increased under four boundary conditions: 1) constant axial and confining stress; 2) constant axial stress and zero radial strain; 3) zero axial strain and constant confining stress; and 4) zero axial and radial strain. These experiments were designed to mimic geologic conditions where vertical stress was either S1 or S3, the lateral boundary conditions were either zero strain or constant stress, and the vertical boundary conditions were either zero strain or constant stress. Triaxial compression caused a decrease in permeability as the sample compacted, followed by appreciable permeability enhancement during sample dilation. Radial extension led to sample dilation, shear failure and permeability increase from the beginning. The krw and kro increased by 40% and 15% post-compaction respectively for the samples corresponding to lower depths during triaxial compression. For these samples, residual oil saturation decreased by as much as 40%. For radial extension, the permeability enhancement decreased with depth and ranged from 20% to 50% while the residual oil saturation decreased by up to 55%. For both stress paths, more shear-enhanced permeability was observed for samples tested at lower pressures, implying that permeability enhancement is higher for shallower sands. The pore pressure increase experiments showed an increase of only 0-10% in absolute permeability except when the effective stress became close to zero. This could possibly have occurred due to steady state flow not being reached during absolute permeability measurement. The krw curves generally increased as the pore pressure was increased from 0 psi. The increase ranged from 5% to 44% for the different boundary conditions and differential stresses. The kro curves also showed an increasing trend for most of the cases. The residual oil saturation decreased by 40-60% for samples corresponding to shallow depths while it increased by 0-10% for samples corresponding to greater depths. The reservoirs with high differential stress are more conducive to favorable changes in permeability and residual oil saturation. These results suggested that a decreasing mean stress path is more beneficial for production increase than an increasing mean stress path. The unconsolidated sands are over-consolidated because of previous ice loading which makes the sand matrix stiffer. In this work, it was found that over-consolidation, as expected, decreased the porosity and permeability (40-50%) and increased the Young’s and bulk moduli of the sand. The result is sand which failed at higher than expected stress during triaxial compression. Overall, results show that lab experiments support increased permeability due to steam injection operations in heavy oil, and more importantly, the observed reduction in residual oil saturation implies SAGD induced deformation should improve recovery factors. / text

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T14:07:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MariaDMP_pre_textuais_ate_cap_3.pdf: 1552357 bytes, checksum: 286c69a88a6d2c4ec8689ee9514da8ec (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008-10-28 / Oil wells subjected to cyclic steam injection present important challenges for the development of well cementing systems, mainly due to tensile stresses caused by thermal gradients during its useful life. Cement sheath failures in wells using conventional high compressive strength systems lead to the use of cement systems that are more flexible and/or ductile, with emphasis on Portland cement systems with latex addition. Recent research efforts have presented geopolymeric systems as alternatives. These cementing systems are based on alkaline activation of amorphous aluminosilicates such as metakaolin or fly ash and display advantageous properties such as high compressive strength, fast setting and thermal stability. Basic geopolymeric formulations can be found in the literature, which meet basic oil industry specifications such as rheology, compressive strength and thickening time. In this work, new geopolymeric formulations were developed, based on metakaolin, potassium silicate, potassium hydroxide, silica fume and mineral fiber, using the state of the art in chemical composition, mixture modeling and additivation to optimize the most relevant properties for oil well cementing. Starting from molar ratios considered ideal in the literature (SiO2/Al2O3 = 3.8 e K2O/Al2O3 = 1.0), a study of dry mixtures was performed,based on the compressive packing model, resulting in an optimal volume of 6% for the added solid material. This material (silica fume and mineral fiber) works both as an additional silica source (in the case of silica fume) and as mechanical reinforcement, especially in the case of mineral fiber, which incremented the tensile strength. The first triaxial mechanical study of this class of materials was performed. For comparison, a mechanical study of conventional latex-based cementing systems was also carried out. Regardless of differences in the failure mode (brittle for geopolymers, ductile for latex-based systems), the superior uniaxial compressive strength (37 MPa for the geopolymeric slurry P5 versus 18 MPa for the conventional slurry P2), similar triaxial behavior (friction angle 21? for P5 and P2) and lower stifness (in the elastic region 5.1 GPa for P5 versus 6.8 GPa for P2) of the geopolymeric systems allowed them to withstand a similar amount of mechanical energy (155 kJ/m3 for P5 versus 208 kJ/m3 for P2), noting that geopolymers work in the elastic regime, without the microcracking present in the case of latex-based systems. Therefore, the geopolymers studied on this work must be designed for application in the elastic region to avoid brittle failure. Finally, the tensile strength of geopolymers is originally poor (1.3 MPa for the geopolymeric slurry P3) due to its brittle structure. However, after additivation with mineral fiber, the tensile strength became equivalent to that of latex-based systems (2.3 MPa for P5 and 2.1 MPa for P2). The technical viability of conventional and proposed formulations was evaluated for the whole well life, including stresses due to cyclic steam injection. This analysis was performed using finite element-based simulation software. It was verified that conventional slurries are viable up to 204?F (400?C) and geopolymeric slurries are viable above 500?F (260?C) / Po?os sujeitos ? inje??o c?clica de vapor apresentam importantes desafios para desenvolvimento de pastas de cimenta??o, devido principalmente aos esfor?os de tra??o causados pelos gradientes t?rmicos durante a sua vida ?til. Falhas em cimenta??es que empregaram pastas convencionais de elevada resist?ncia ? compress?o levaram ao emprego de pastas mais flex?veis e/ou d?cteis, com destaque para as pastas de cimento Portland com adi??o de l?tex. Recentes pesquisas t?m apresentado pastas geopolim?ricas como alternativa. Estas pastas cimentantes s?o baseadas na ativa??o alcalina de aluminosilicatos amorfos como o metacaulim ou a cinza volante e possuem propriedades vantajosas como alta resist?ncia ? compress?o, r?pido endurecimento e estabilidade t?rmica. Encontram-se na literatura formula??es geopolim?ricas b?sicas que atendem ?s especifica??es da ind?stria de petr?leo, incluindo reologia, resist?ncia ? compress?o e tempo de espessamento. Neste trabalho, desenvolveu-se novas formula??es geopolim?ricas ? base de metacaulim, silicato de pot?ssio, hidr?xido de pot?ssio, micross?lica e fibra mineral, utilizando o estado da arte em composi??o qu?mica, modelagem de misturas e aditiva??o para otimizar as propriedades relevantes para a cimenta??o de po?os. Partindo de raz?es molares consideradas ideais na literatura (SiO2/Al2O3 = 3,8 e K2O/Al2O3 = 1,0), realizou-se um estudo de misturas secas baseado no modelo do empacotamento compress?vel, obtendo-se um volume ?timo de 6% para o material s?lido adicional. Este material (micross?lica e fibra mineral) serve tanto como fonte de s?lica adicional (no caso da micross?lica) quanto refor?o mec?nico, principalmente no caso da fibra mineral, a qual incrementou a resist?ncia ? tra??o. Realizou-se o primeiro estudo mec?nico triaxial desta classe de pastas. Para efeito de compara??o, tamb?m foi realizado um estudo mec?nico de pastas convencionais ? base de l?tex. Apesar de diferen?as no modo de ruptura (fr?gil no caso dos geopol?meros, d?ctil no caso das pastas com l?tex), a superior resist?ncia compressiva uniaxial (37 MPa para a pasta geopolim?rica P5 versus 18 MPa para a pasta convencional P2), comportamento triaxial similar (?ngulo de atrito 21? para P5 e P2) e menor rigidez (na regi?o el?stica 5,1 GPa para P5 versus 6,8 GPa para P2) das pastas geopolim?ricas permitiu uma capacidade de absor??o de energia (155 kJ/m3 para P5 versus 208 kJ/m3 para P2) compar?vel entre as duas, sendo que os geopol?meros atuam no regime el?stico, sem a microfissura??o presente nas pastas com l?tex. Assim, os geopol?meros estudados neste trabalho devem ser dimensionados para aplica??es no regime el?stico para evitar fraturas fr?geis. Finalmente, a resist?ncia ? tra??o do geopol?mero ? originalmente pobre (1,3 MPa para a pasta geopolim?rica P3) devido ? sua estrutura fr?gil. Entretanto, ap?s a aditiva??o desse sistema com fibra mineral, a resist?ncia ? tra??o do mesmo tornou-se equivalente (2,3 MPa para P5 e 2,1 MPa para P2) ? das pastas com l?tex. A viabilidade t?cnica das formula??es convencionais e geopolim?ricas foi avaliada durante toda a vida ?til do po?o, incluindo os esfor?os devidos ? inje??o c?clica de vapor. Esta an?lise foi feita utilizando um software de simula??o ? base de elementos finitos. Verificou-se que as pastas convencionais s?o vi?veis at? a temperatura de 204?C (400?F) e as geopolim?ricas acima de 260?C (500?F)