The effects of the heterogenities on the fluid transport properties are of primary concern for basic scientific studies, petroleum production, ground water hydrology, and environmental characterization. This thesis is concerned with the effects of porous formation heterogenities on the steady, transient, and dynamic fluid flow behavior, and their influence on borehole permeability measurements. From fluid flow point of view, heterogeneity and anisotropy are two closely related properties. We model steady fluid flow in media with different heterogenities, especially the lineated continuous and discontinuous permeability heterogenities. It is found that the lineation of heterogeneities results in macroscopic permeability anisotropy.
Strong anisotropy exists only when the contrast is large.
The effects of heterogeneity scale on permeability anisotropy are also studied. Numerical simulation indicates that large size heterogeneities along the lineation direction produce strong anisotropy. The anisotropy decreases with decreasing heterogeneity scale sizes. In the laboratory transient tests, both the early time and the late time portions of the pressure transient are used to obtain rock permeability. Our numerical simulation results show that the early time behavior of the transient pressure pulse is controlled by the rock heterogeneity and can be used to characterize the permeability heterogeneity of the rock, while late time behavior is mainly controlled by the effective permeability of the sample.