Development of a virtual geomechanics laboratory and application to the Study of the stability of sandstone reservoirs under fluid injection regime

Access to rock mechanics research infrastructure poses a major challenge for the development of geosciences in sub-Saharan Africa, due to the lack of laboratories and the high cost of experimental equipment. This article presents the creation of a virtual geomechanics laboratory based on the high-performance programming language Julia. The developed tool allows for the numerical simulation of complex stress states and the prediction of geological formation failure through the implementation of Mohr-Coulomb and Griffith criteria. By integrating advanced visualization libraries like GLMakie, the framework offers an interactive interface for analyzing Mohr circles, and more specifically, for studying the influence of pore pressure on reservoir stability. The validity of the model is demonstrated by a comparison with experimental data from sandstones typical of sedimentary basins in Central Africa, such as the Rio Del Rey sedimentary basin. This tool initially allows, based on the tangent condition, the determination of the critical pore pressure, providing precise pressure thresholds to prevent instabilities. Then, this value is confirmed after simulation, thus allowing the quantification of operational safety. This virtual laboratory thus offers a viable and sovereign alternative to strengthen local academic and industrial capacities in the exploitation of natural resources and geothermal energy.