DISCO2 STORE
Discontinuities in CO2 Storage Reservoirs
Discontinuities in CO2 Storage Reservoirs
Based on the data from outcrops and subsurface, lab work, and machine learning techniques, we will develop methodologies to detect and identify mechanical discontinuities of different scales, going from small scale fractures or bedding planes to large faults at the subsurface.
Drawing from theoretical and numerical studies as well as experimental results, we will develop new strategies to detect and characterize partially-saturated fractures using seismic waves. Moreover, we will explore the reflectivity of partially saturated fractured media using fluid distributions resulting from two-phase flow experiments in a Hele-Shaw cell.
Based on extensive experimental work and innovative laboratory tests, we will provide the characterization of mechanical discontinuities, enhance existing constitutive models and propose an evaluation of mechanical discontinuities behavirour under complex stress paths.
We will use Hele-Shaw cells (introducing walls modifications) to explore the phenomenology of multiphase CO2-brine transport in mechanical discontinuities. The experiments with Hele-Shaw cells allow evaluating flow regimes and their consequences on transport properties in the rock.
We aim to evaluate the response of mechanical discontinuities to contact with CO2 and for that we will conduct laboratory testing of different systems under saturated CO2 atmosphere, develop a theoretical model of pore evolution along the chemo-mechanical interaction and enhance continuum damage constitutive models.
To better understand the impact of mechanical discontinuities on fracture geometries and evaluate potential risks associated with CO2 injections, we will run laboratory experiments which will be complemented by numerical modelling and enhanced by mesh independence techniques.