Thermal degradation of source rock, exogenous or not, involves kerogen conversion resulting in rock structure evolution from non-permeable to permeable. Pyrolysis reactions produce oil and gas, locally increasing pressure and stress. The rock fails and cracks propagate enhancing the permeability of the medium. This represents a new challenge for porous media research as the system to be model evolves in time and exhibits strong coupling between mass and heat transfer, and rock mechanics. In this work, we propose to apply pore-scale simulations including fluid flow, heat transfer and rock mechanics on a source rock. A modelling strategy will be proposed and demonstrated on oil shale.
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