ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Earth Sci.
Sec. Georeservoirs
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feart.2025.1701477
The impact of water flow rate on the dynamic dissolution kinetics of fractured limestone formations
Provisionally accepted
- 1China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Co Ltd, Langfang, China
- 2Sichuan University, Chengdu, China
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As a potential host rock for groundwater-sealed underground storage caverns, the carbonate minerals in limestone can dissolve under hydrodynamic action, leading to the expansion of fractures and threatening the safety of the caverns.Based on limestone samples from Yangmu Town, Guangyuan, this study investigates the dynamic evolution of fracture apertures in surrounding rock under hydrodynamic dissolution conditions. Through experimentally examining the effects of flow rate and Ca2+ concentration on fracture surface dissolution characteristics using a customized flow test apparatus, a dynamic dissolution model was developed based on mass conservation principles and laminar flow theory.The results indicate a significant coupling relationship between flow rate and corrosion rate. As the flow rate increases, the difference in Ca2+ concentration between the inlet and outlet decays exponentially, and the mass of corrosion per unit time increases sharply.The initial Ca2+ concentration in the leaching solution inhibits dissolution. When the Ca2+ concentration reaches 34.2 ppm, the dissolution is effectively suppressed.The fracture aperture calculated by the theoretical model has an error of less than 16% compared with the 3D scanning results, which can quantitatively characterize the coupling effect. This study can provide support for predicting water inflow and assessing the safety of cavern storage.
Keywords: limestone, dissolution, Flow velocity, Fracture width, Ion concentration
Received: 09 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xu, Ma, Bo, Fan and Han. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuhang Ma, 17390298260@163.com
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