Experimental study on the sandstone abrasiveness via mineral composition and microstructure analysis

Abstract

Rock abrasiveness is an important factor affecting the tool's lifetime and efficiency in breaking a rock. Characterizing rock abrasiveness helps in the design, optimization, and mean-life prediction of tools. X-ray diffraction, cast thin section analysis, and CERCHAR abrasiveness tests were performed on 18 different sandstones to characterize rock abrasiveness and explore new methods for characterization. The relationship between the mineral composition and microstructure of sandstone and abrasiveness was investigated. The results show that different structural maturities have varying effects on abrasiveness. In addition, the higher the structural maturity, the more the abrasiveness. Furthermore, in sandstones of the same structural maturity, the abrasiveness increases with equivalent quartz content (EQC). The texture coefficient (TC) and CERCHAR abrasiveness index (CAI) of sandstones with the same structural maturity showed a good linear relationship. Moreover, the correlation coefficients considering the combined parameters are above 0.85. Therefore, obtaining the microstructure and mineral composition of sandstone can effectively characterize rock abrasiveness. It also provides a new method for predicting the abrasiveness of the rock in the well.

Keywords

Abrasiveness / Microstructure / Mineral compositions / Structural maturity / Equivalent quartz content / Sandstone

Author statement

Yang Tang: Methodology, Formal analysis, and Writing -Original Draft; Shuai Chen: Methodology and Writing -Review & Editing; Leiyu Gao: Writing -Review & Editing; Yuming Wang: Writing -Review & Editing; Xiangchao Shi: Conceptualization, Resources, Writing -Review & Editing and Funding acquisition.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. U20A20266), Science and Technology Cooperation Project of the CNPC-SWPU Innovation Alliance (Grant No.2020CX040103), and Sichuan Province Key R&D Program (Grant No.22SYSX0035).

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