Constitutive modeling of chalk. Application to waterflooding

Subsidence of chalk oil reservoirs in North Sea is related to the chalk compaction induced by fluid depletion and by the water – chalk interaction. A constitutive model is developed in order to take into account these two effects. It is based on frictional – cap elastoplasticity and on the Barcelona unsaturated soil model. Oil – water – chalk interaction is modeled through the suction variable. In a second step, viscous effects are added to the model. After implementation into a finite element code, these tools allow to simulate a waterflooding experiment on a chalk sample. The model appears to reproduce qualitatively and quantitatively the experimental results.