Compressional‐ and shear‐wave velocities as a function of confining stress in dry sandstones

A laboratory study was carried out to investigate the influence of confining stress on compressional‐ and shear‐wave velocities for a set of rock samples from gas‐producing sandstone reservoirs in the Cooper Basin, South Australia. The suite of samples consists of 22 consolidated sublitharenites with helium porosity ranging from 2.6% to 16.6%. We used a pulse‐echo technique to measure compressional‐ and shear‐wave velocities on dry samples (cylindrical 4.6 × 2 cm) at room temperature and at elevated confining stress (≤ 60 MPa). Compressional‐ and shear‐wave velocities in samples increase non‐linearly with confining stress. A regression equation of the form V = A − Be^−DP gives a good fit to the measured velocities with improved prediction of velocities at high confining stresses compared with equations suggested by other studies. The predicted microcrack‐closure stresses of the samples show values ranging from 70 MPa to 95 MPa and insignificant correlation with porosity, permeability or clay content. There is a positive correlation between change in velocity with core porosity and permeability, but this association is weak and diminishes with increasing confining stress. Experimental results show that pore geometry, grain‐contact type, and distribution and location of clay particles may be more significant than total porosity and clay content in describing the stress sensitivity of sandstones at in situ reservoir effective stress. The stress dependence of Cooper Basin sandstones is very large compared with data from other studies. The implication of our study for hydrocarbon exploration is that where the in situ reservoir effective stress is much less than the microcrack‐closure stress of the reservoir rocks, the variation of reservoir effective stress could cause significant changes in velocity of the reservoir rocks. The velocity changes induced by effective stress in highly stress‐sensitive rocks can be detected at sonic‐log and probably surface‐seismic frequencies.