Impact of Adsorption Swelling and Slippage Effects on Changes in Coal’s Permeability at Different Temperatures
Kang Yang, Bobo Li, Jianhua Li, Jiang Xu, Chonghong Ren, Zheng Gao
Abstract
As a critical parameter, coal’s permeability influences the coalbed’s methane (CBM) production efficiency, which, in turn, is affected by a slippage effect, adsorption swelling, and effective stress in the CBM exploitation process. In this paper, an isothermal adsorption experiment under various temperatures, including seepage tests comprising CH 4 and He in coal at different temperatures under constant effective stress, was carried out separately. We established a modified Shi&Duruca (S&D) model that considered constant effective stress and a modified adsorption model, in which the effect of excess adsorption capacity and temperature was considered. The results revealed that swelling deformation occurred when coal adsorbed CH 4, which would result in the permeability of CH 4 being lower than that of He under similar conditions. With an increase in pore pressure, coal’s permeability decreased gradually under the combined effects of slippage and adsorption swelling. Temperature is an important factor that affects the movement and storage of gas. Any change in temperature and pore pressure would result in coal’s permeability being comprehensively affected by thermal expansion, thermal cracking, and adsorption swelling, including the effects of slippage. Thermal expansion and thermal cracking increase coal’s permeability under low pressure and decrease coal’s permeability under high pressure. The modified adsorption model and permeability model could better characterize the adsorption and permeability properties of coal. The calculation results illustrated that the slippage effect and adsorption swelling are two important factors affecting permeability, with its permeability increment sharing a similar change trend with changes in permeability. Under the condition of low pressure, the adsorption swelling effect was dominant, and the contributary rate of the slippage effect on permeability would increase, obviously, with an increase in temperature.