Fiber Bragg grating-based experimental and numerical investigations of CO2 migration front in saturated sandstone under subcritical and supercritical conditions

Carbon dioxide (CO2) can be at risk of leakage during its storage in deep saline aquifers due to stress field changes in the reservoir. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of CO2 injection pressure on dynamic strain response of the reservoir and the CO2 migration process. A series of core flooding experiments was performed with the-state-of-art fiber Bragg grating sensors. The results show that the surface strain response was linearly correlated with CO2 injection pressure. Carbon dioxide migration velocity can be estimated from the strain response time differences among three gratings. The migration velocity of supercritical CO2 is higher than that of liquid CO2 but lower than gaseous CO2. Finally, numerical simulation was applied to model the CO2 migration process and the simulated values were compatible with those of experiments. (c) 2018 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.