Synthetic Porous Rock Manufacturing for Hydrodynamic and Petrophysical Analyses

Abstract

[Abstract]: Different authors have used synthetic rocks to perform rock mechanics experiments or to assess petrophysical properties under well-known material conditions. In contrast with naturally cohesive materials, synthetic rocks provide with some opportunities to standardize mineralogy, grain size and morphology as well as the possibility to enhance certain rock features (e.g. anisotropy) useful to test or improve rock physical models. Typically, synthetic rocks are made of minerals grains bound together by a gluing agent that may be an organic adhesive (epoxy-like), cement or a nearly-saturated silica solution. However, most of the available works reporting synthesis of artificial rocks in the literature do not present a comprehensive framework for, at least: a) How the manufacturing process was performed and what are the associated implications; b) the characterization of the physical and hydrodynamic properties of the final products; and c) an assessment about the consistency of rock-related results ( i.e. homogeneity, reproducibility) from the artificial rocks. In this contribution we present a methodology for the design, manufacturing and characterization of sandstone-like synthetic rocks. Sandstone-like plugs have been fabricated using homogeneous-size glass bead grains that have been compressed to a load limited by grain fragmentation (as recorded by simultaneous acoustic emissions). Sodium metasilicate and kaolinite were used as proto-binding agents. Cementation occurred as a result of direct chemical reactions and the submission of the samples to different thermal treatment paths. The plugs obtained have been tested in order to determine properties like density, porosity, specific surface, strength, and ultrasonic velocities ( Vp and Vs) and their corresponding variabilities.