The effect of stress anisotropy on sanding: An experimental study

Abstract

Sand production experiments were carried out under true-triaxial stress conditions. The experiments were conducted on 100×100×100 mm3 cubes of synthetically made samples. The samples were prepared based on an established procedure developed in the laboratory to produce samples with identical physico-mechanical properties and representing weakly consolidated sandstone. Using a true-triaxial stress cell (TTSC), the samples were subjected to 3D boundary stresses and radial fluid flow from the boundaries. The fluid flows through the sample uniformly and discharges from a hole drilled at the center of the sample. The experiment setup and procedure are explained in detail in this paper. The experiments were performed under three different states of stress to study the effect of the intermediate principal stress (in this study, the minimum lateral stress) on the development of the failure zone. The dimension (i.e. width and depth) of the failure zone developed around the borehole were investigated at the end of the experiments. The results of these experiments will be presented and discussed.