Abstract
Underground carbon dioxyde (CO2) storage operation in deep geological formation like saline aquifers or gas reservoirs is considered to be a prospective solution to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. However CO2 sealing injection has to be assured for centuries. Once setting, the cement is a few centimeters thickness interface between the rock and the casing. This cementeous interface appears as the most critical point for the sealing and containment of CO2. A continuous stream of CO2 being injected into reservoir rock formation will cause in a region around the injection water desaturation and drying shrinkage of the reservoir and the cement paste and potentially hydraulic fracture. Therefore, the moisture balance with the CO2 reservoir induces water desaturation and drying shrinkage. Some local stresses are then expected because of the strain incompatibility between the cement and the steel casing and the high pressures levels. These stresses may result in a cracking process along the interface and in a secondary cracks network. In this context, we investigate how the poromechanical theory should be extended using a energy approach framework to describe the fracture mechanic induced by the fluid injection in a porous medium. The original idea of this approach consists in deriving the poro-mechanical equations introducing explicitly the multiphase flow. This model, aims at describing coupled flows in a damageable elastic porous medium, due to the combined influence of hydraulic and pressure gradients simultaneously imposed. The numerical implementation is based on a standard finite element discretization and adaptation of a eigenerosion model to simulate cracking.