An analysis of the dependence of thermal transport parameters on organic content for Green River oil shales

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Abstract
An analysis of the trends in the variation of the thermal transport parameters with organic content (taking thermal diffusivity as an example) is presented for oil shales of the Green River formation. The Cheng‐Vachon model gives good agreement with experimental data, for oil shales of medium grade (100–250 l/ton) and for heat flowing in directions perpendicular to the orientation of the shale bedding planes. The degree of anisotropy experimentally observed for thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity for these materials is much less than that predicted by theory. The marked discrepancy between the experimental data and the trends predicted by theory for heat flow in directions parallel to the shale stratigraphic planes is explained in terms of departure from a strict parallel configuration and an effective lower value for the thermal diffusivity of the mineral phase. Good agreement with experimental data is shown by the geometric mean model and Maxwell’s equation for the parallel case. Possible reasons for the failure of these models at low levels of shale organic content (<∼35% by volume) are discussed.