Study of a low-disturbance pressure-preserving corer and its coring performance in deep coal mining conditions

With the increasing depth of coal mining,the requirements for coring devices that maintain pressure are increasing.To adapt to the special environment in deep coal seams and improve the accuracy of testing gas content,a low-disturbance pressure-preserving corer was developed.The measurement of gas content using this corer was analyzed.The coring test platform was used to complete a coring function test.A pressurized core with a diameter of 50 mm was obtained.The pressure was 0.15 MPa,which was equal to the pressure of the liquid column of the cored layer,indicating that the corer can be successfully used in a mud environment.Next,a pressure test of the corer was conducted.The results showed that under conditions of low pressure(8 MPa)and high pressure(25 MPa),the internal pressure of the corer remained stable for more than 1 h,indicating that the corer has good ability to maintain pressure.Therefore,the corer can be applied at deep coal mine sites.The results of this research can be used to promote the safe exploitation of deep coal mines and the exploitation of methane resources in coalbeds.

Contact performance analysis of pressure controller's sealing interface in deep in-situ pressure-preserved coring system

The sealing performance of contact interfaces plays the most important role in the design and operation of the in-situ pressure-preserved coring system.To meet the demand of ultra-high pressure-retained coring for oil and gas exploration in deep reservoirs,a quantitative analysis of the contact mechanical behavior of the pressure controller was performed.Based on the micro-contact theory of rough surfaces,a three-dimensional numerical model of the rough contact interface between the valve cover and the valve seat was constructed,and the micro-contact behavior of the metal contact surfaces was comprehensively studied.The results show that the actual contact area of the valve interface increases with the increase of surface roughness before the critical contact point,but decreases after that.Compared with the real contact model with double rough surfaces,although the simplified hard-contact model with a single rough surface can reflect the micro-contact behavior of the rough surface to a certain extent,it cannot truly reveal the microchannel morphology between the sealing interfaces under pressure.Therefore,the realistic double-rough-surface model should be recommended to evaluate the sealing performance of coring tools,particularly for high pressure conditions.The material properties of valves have a significant effect on the contact characteristics of rough surfaces,which suggested that the actual contact area decreases with the increase of the elastic modulus of the contact material under the same loading conditions.The knowledge of this work could help to enhance the seal design of pressure controllers for in-situ pressure-preserved coring.

Numerical analysis on mechanical difference of sandstone under in-situ stress,pore pressure preserved environment at depth

Deep in-situ rock mechanics considers the influence of the in-situ environment on mechanical properties,differentiating it from traditional rock mechanics.To investigate the effect of in-situ stress,pore pressure preserved environment on the mechanical difference of sandstone,four tests are numerically modeled by COMSOL:conventional triaxial test,conventional pore pressure test,in-situ stress restoration and reconstruction test,and in-situ pore pressure-preserved test(not yet realized in the laboratory).The in-situ stress restoration parameter is introduced to characterize the recovery effect of in-situ stress on elastic modulus and heterogeneous distribution of sandstone at different depths.A random function and nonuniform pore pressure coefficient are employed to describe the non-uniform distribution of pore pressure in the in-situ environment.Numerical results are compared with existing experimental data to validate the models and calibrate the numerical parameters.By extracting mechanical parameters from numerical cores,the stress-strain curves of the four tests under different depths,in-situ stress and pore pressure are compared.The influence of non-uniform pore pressure coefficient and depth on the peak strength of sandstone is analyzed.The results show a strong linear relationship between the in-situ stress restoration parameter and depth,effectively characterizing the enhanced effect of stress restoration and reconstruction methods on the elastic modulus of conventional cores at different depths.The in-situ pore pressurepreserved test exhibits lower peak stress and peak strain compared to the other three tests,and sandstone subjected to non-uniform pore pressure is more prone to plastic damage and failure.Moreover,the influence of non-uniform pore pressure on peak strength gradually diminished with increasing depth.