Tingting Yang

Slope instability is a common type of damage in embankment dams. Analyzing its microstructural changes during water transport is beneficial to identify the critical damage point in more detail. To this end, we closely link both diffused water molecule and damaged concrete. On the basis of the original research on fractal theory, the fractal permeability model for the pore system is established. At the same time, considering the pore structure characteristics of concrete, the models for fluid–solid coupling inside and outside the embankment are established in this work. The simulated results and experimental data agree well, thus verifying the correctness of the proposed models. The changes of concrete pore structures under different water pressure and different initial porosities are simulated by numerical methods. The results show that: (1) with the increase of the safety factor, the slope of the embankment begins to be damaged at the critical point and then completely destabilized; (2) with the increase of the pressure head, the change of the fractal dimension of the embankment’s porosity from the top to the bottom changes from linear to nonlinear. (3) The initial porosity of concrete is proportional to the evolution of concrete pore structure. From a technical point of view, this study can contribute the effective technical guidance for related professional practitioners in the analysis of embankment slope stability from a microscopic point of view.

As one of the most significant clean energy sources, the migration characteristics and extraction processes of coalbed methane (CBM) have been extensively studied. The structural distribution and evolutionary characteristics of reservoir fractures, as the main conduit for gas migration, significantly affect the permeability and gas production. However, few models have been able to quantitatively and accurately explore reservoir micro-macro interactions under coupled thermal-fluid-solid effects. This work develops a new highly coupled model based on the widely-adopted power-law function to quantify reservoir thermal conduction effect, gas pressure evolution, reservoir deformation, in-situ stress, adsorption-desorption effect and reservoir microstructure evolution. Three parameters are adopted to quantitatively characterize the reservoir structure: (1) fracture power index (to characterize the fracture density), (2) fracture length ratio r_f (to characterize the fracture size) and (3) the maximum fracture length l. The results demonstrate that the fractal network is a special kind of network in the power-law length distribution. And the proposed power-law seepage model is able to accurately characterize the evolution of reservoir microstructure and the impact of microevolution on extraction under multi-field coupling effects, compared to the traditional power-law model. The proposed model can provide a good theoretical and practical support for the study of CBM migration and extraction.