Chalk-fluid interactions with glycol and brines

Mechanical properties of high porosity chalks are strongly dependent on the type of fluid in the pores. Dry chalk is considerably stronger than water-saturated chalk, and this phenomenon is often referred to as the water-weakening effect. To address the problem of chalk-fluid interactions, several series of tests have been performed with glycol and high concentration brines as saturating fluids. Glycol is a fluid that in many aspects resembles oil, except that glycol is miscible with water. Glycol-saturated chalk turns out to have properties very similar to oil-saturated chalk. Compared to dry chalk, both oil and glycol make the chalk somewhat weaker, but this weakening effect is much less than with water. Several series of tests with brines with high concentrations of calcium chloride or sodium chloride show that the water-weakening effect is considerably reduced in high ionic strength solutions. Most tests were performed as quasi-hydrostatic tests, with a constant stress ratio of 0.9. In such tests, the yield point marks the onset of accelerated pore collapse, and the yield value is close to the hydrostatic yield stress. In addition to these compressive tests, a series of Brazilian tests were performed, revealing the same trend. The variations in mechanical strength have been correlated with the activity of water in the brines. Within the experimental accuracy of the compressive tests, there is a linear trend between reduction of water activity and the corresponding increase in strength. This leads to the hypothesis that the water activity may be a key parameter in the water-weakening mechanism. But this conclusion also indicates that water weakening may be a special case of general chalk-fluid interactions where the degree of weakening depends on the strength of adsorption of the fluid molecules to the calcite surfaces. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.