Transport Properties of Porous Media from Thin-sections (2001)

Transport Properties of Porous Media from Thin-sections I. Hidajat; I. Hidajat University of Houston Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar A. Rastogi; A. Rastogi University of Houston Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar M. Singh; M. Singh University of Houston Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar K.K. Mohanty K.K. Mohanty University of Houston Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Paper presented at the SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 2001. Paper Number: SPE-69623-MS https://doi.org/10.2118/69623-MS Published: March 25 2001 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Get Permissions Search Site Citation Hidajat, I., Rastogi, A., Singh, M., and K.K. Mohanty. "Transport Properties of Porous Media from Thin-sections." Paper presented at the SPE Latin American and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference, Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 2001. doi: https://doi.org/10.2118/69623-MS Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex Search nav search search input Search input auto suggest search filter All ContentAll ProceedingsSociety of Petroleum Engineers (SPE)SPE Latin America and Caribbean Petroleum Engineering Conference Search Advanced Search AbstractThe objective of this work is to predict transport properties within any complex porous medium from its 2D micro-image. Three-dimensional porous media are generated that have the same porosity, autocorrelation, chord length distribution and lineal path function as a given 2D micro-image of a medium. The properties of the regenerated media are compared with those of the original media. A pore skeleton and Euclidean distance map are determined for the 3D pore-space from which body radius, throat radius and connectivity distributions are extracted. This network structure is used in calculation of transport properties. Specific surface area is estimated accurately. Permeability and formation factor are estimated approximately. The correlations between adjacent pore bodies and throats are identified.IntroductionFormation evaluation is an important task in the development of oil and gas reservoirs. It involves many operations such as seismic, well testing, logging, and core analysis. Of all these methods, core analysis has the highest spatial resolution. Cores are analyzed for their transport properties such as permeability, relative permeability, capillary pressure, and electrical conductivity etc. These tests are performed only on a few cores because these experiments are expensive and time consuming.1In the past, several pore-scale mechanistic techniques have been developed to relate pore structure to macroscopic transport properties of porous media, e.g. Lattice-Boltzmann method2,3 and network models.4–6 Lattice-Boltzmann method starts with a particulate description of fluids and Boltzmann transport equation is solved with specific collision rules that approximates Navier-Stokes equation on an average. This method readily lends itself to parallelization and is effective in describing single phase flow through complex geometries.7 This method is still very computationally intensive for multiphase flow through porous media.2 Network models idealize the pore space as a network of pore bodies or junctions interconnected by pore throats or bonds. Given the pore-level displacement physics8 in each body and throat, one can compute single phase9 and multiphase transport properties of a medium.10 Percolation theory can be used if pseudostatic invasions are modeled in idealized regular networks.11 These techniques have been successful in estimating the trends of transport properties of porous media.12,13 They have been successful quantitatively only for a few cases14–16 where detailed pore geometry is available. In many applications in the past, the detailed 3D pore structure has not been available.It is possible to get the 3D pore structure of a porous rock by serial sectioning,17 X-ray microtomography,18 and image reconstruction.19 Serial sectioning involves imaging hundreds of polished sections of a porous rock and is performed rarely because it is very time consuming. Microtomography (or micro CT) uses synchrotron X-ray sources and is thus not routinely available. Image reconstruction involves generation of a 3D pore structure from a 2D image of a thin-section. Thin-sections are often taken from formation cores and imaged for geological evaluation, such as mineralogy and sorting. Thin-section images are seldom used to estimate formation transport properties. If a reliable method can be developed to reconstruct 3D pore structures from their 2D sectional images, then thin-sections can be used to estimate transport properties.Two methods have been developed in the past for porous media reconstruction: process-based15,16 and statistics-based.19–21 In the process-based method, thin-section images are analyzed to determine the grain diameter distribution. Sedimentation of these spherical grains is then simulated, followed by a certain amount of compaction. This simulated pore space is further modified for quartz cement overgrowth and clay coating. It is a mechanistic method and initial results appear promising.16 Its limitation lies in the presumed spherical shape of the particles. The statistics-based method does not make any assumptions about the shapes of particles. Certain spatial statistics of the 2D image are measured and a 3D medium is generated that reproduces those statistics.21 If accurate, this reconstruction technique offers a fast and viable way to generate realistic porous media. Keywords: formation factor, reconstruction, length distribution, machine learning, combination method, simulation, rastogi, porous medium, permeability, autocorrelation function Subjects: Reservoir Fluid Dynamics, Flow in porous media This content is only available via PDF. 2001. Society of Petroleum Engineers You can access this article if you purchase or spend a download.