Prediction of Permeability from the Skeleton of Three-Dimensional Pore Structure

Abstract

Summary The main purpose of the present work is to predict the permeability of a porous medium from its three-dimensional (3D) porous structure network. In this work, 3D porous structure is reconstructed by the truncated Gaussian method using Fourier transform and starting from a 2D binary image obtained from a thin section of a porous sample. The skeleton of the 3D porous structure provides a way of visualizing the graph of the pore network. It is determined using a thinning algorithm, which is conceived to preserve topology. It gives both visual and quantitative information about the connectivity of the pore space, the coordination number for every node and local hydraulic radius. Once the network of the pore structure is obtained, the macroscopic transport properties, such as the permeability, can be predicted. The method is applied to a 500 mD Berea sandstone and the predicted permeability is in good agreement with the experimental value and empirical correlations.