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www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci-discuss.net/5/2409/2008/
doi:10.5194/hessd-5-2409-2008
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under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Thermal conductivity of unsaturated clay-rocks
1Colorado School of Mines, Green Center, Department of Geophysics, Golden, CO, USA
2ANDRA, Chatenay-Malabry, France
3CNRS-LGIT (UMR 5559), University of Savoie, Equipe Volcan, Le Bourget-du-Lac, France
Abstract. The thermal conductivity of porous materials can be related to the electrical conductivity and therefore electrical resistivity tomography can be used to map the thermal conductivity of porous rocks. In this paper, a relationship is developed to connect the thermal conductivity of unsaturated clay-rocks to the thermal conductivity of the different phases of the porous composite, a textural parameter called the thermal formation factor, and the tortuosity of the water phase. The thermal formation factor is related to the electrical formation factor and to the first Archie's first exponent m. The tortuosity of the water phase is related to the second Archie's exponent n and to the relative saturation of the water phase. A very good agreement is obtained between the new model and thermal conductivity measurements of packs of glass beads and cores of the Callovo-Oxfordian argillite at different saturations of the water phase. Anisotropy of the effective thermal conductivity is mainly due to the anisotropy of the thermal conductivity of the solid phase.
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Citation: Jougnot, D. and Revil, A.: Thermal conductivity of unsaturated clay-rocks, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 5, 2409-2423, doi:10.5194/hessd-5-2409-2008, 2008. Bibtex EndNote Reference Manager XML
