Predicting the mechanical parameters of oil sands using digital rock cores and finite element method

ABSTRACT: In order to study the influence of volume expansion caused by water injection or gas injection on the oil sand reservoir in Karamay Oilfield during SAGD operation, this paper establishes a two-dimensional digital core model in COMSOL after noise reduction, binarization, and vectorization of the oil sand image scanned by environmental scanning electron microscope. The locally non-uniform stress and strain distribution at the boundary between asphalt and solid particles was analyzed using the generated stress and strain fields. The testing method of calculating oil sand porosity using digital rock cores is used to evaluate the mechanical properties of oil sand, establish the relationship between oil sand porosity and rock mechanics parameters, thereby saving much workforce, material resources, and time.