Researchers from Samara State Technical University (Samara Polytech or SSTU) designed and built the test facility to explore subsoil resources. As the University's Press Office informs, the new machine can recreate the physical parameters of a rock deposit in a lab environment. It analyses rock hardness, ductility, plasticity, and other mechanical characteristics.
One of the possible uses of the new unit is to examine the drilling mud effect on the mechanical properties of the rock material. It is ensured by saturating the test sample with liquid, then letting elastic waves pass through it and registering the pressure change and possible deformations if they occurred.
"The development of the mechanism that we call the Monster machine was inspired by the invention of Sergey A. Khristianovich, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the founder of oil & gas geomechanics in the USSR. The main principles of the device he created formed the basis of our work," says Alexey Podyachev, the project manager, Associate Professor of the Oil and Gas Wells Drilling Department at SSTU, Candidate of Technical Sciences.
The uniqueness of the machine is that the investigated core fragment is loaded independently from three sides. For this purpose, the unit's inner block has a form of a decreasing cube. Therefore, the reference shape of the core -traditionally a cylinder - was replaced with a cube, too.
The research team notes that the 'monster' installation allows for carrying out tests not directly related to drilling, with possible examples being the study of the strength of cement, metal and other materials.
The research findings of the Polytech scientists are described in detail in an article published in the journal "Construction of Oil and Gas Wells On Land and Sea".
Let us remind that a group of researchers from the T. Gorbachyov Kuzbass State Technical University came up with a technology that exceeds by far the rest of the materials for absorbing oil slicks on the water's surface.
