ABSTRACT
Measurements of Coefficient of Linear Thermal Expansion (CLTE) on the Bazhenov Formation (BF) rock samples were performed using the original quartz dilatometer, which was developed specially for the measurements of differential CLTE on standard (30 × 30 mm) core plugs within the temperature 298–573 K accounting for rock anisotropy. It was established that BF rock samples have rather high CLTE anisotropy coefficients (up to 2.2). The special measurements were carried out within the range of 298–323 K to ensure repeatability and exclude irreversible changes of samples. Directions of the main axes of thermal conductivity tensor were found to coincide practically with the directions of the main axes of CLTE. The differential CLTE measurements at elevated temperatures within the range of 298–573 K were performed with a temperature step of 20–25 K for nine BF rock plugs for directions both parallel and perpendicular to the bedding plane. The experimental data demonstrate that (1) CLTE values of the BF rock samples exceed essentially the CLTE values of other sedimentary rocks, and (2) CLTE variations for the BF rock samples with temperature have unstable character that can be explained at least by the different content of Total Organic Carbon (TOC) in the samples studied and by processes in organic matter during heating.
