Compaction creep data uniaxial compaction of quartz sand in various chemical environments

We studied the effect of pore fluid chemistry on compaction creep in quartz sand aggregates, as an analogue for clean, highly porous, quartz-rich reservoir sands and sandstone. Creep is specifically addressed, because it is not yet well understood and can potentially cause reservoir compaction even after production has ceased. Going beyond previous work, we focused on fluids typically considered for pressure maintenance or for permanent storage, e.g. water, wastewater, CO2 and N2, as well as agents, such as AlCl3, a quartz dissolution inhibitor, and scaling inhibitors used in water treatment facilities and geothermal energy production. Uniaxial (oedometer) compaction experiments were performed on cylindrical sand samples at constant effective stress (35 MPa) and constant temperature (80 °C), simulating typical reservoir depths of 2-4 km. Insight into the deformation mechanisms operating at the grain scale was obtained via acoustic emission (AE) counting, and by means of microstructural study and grain size analysis applied before and after individual compaction tests.