Analysis and Visualization of 2D and 3D Grain and Pore Size ofFontainebleau Sandstone Using Digital Rock Physics

Abstract

Fontainebleau sandstone is sandstone found in one of the cities in France. This sandstone has unique characteristics, which is a clean-fme sandstone, composed of 99% quartz, virtually devoid of clay, with the grain size of about 200 μm. Fontainebleau sandstone is widely used as a reference in the study of rock microstructure analysis and modelling. In this work analysis regarding the grain and pore size of Fontainebleau is presented. Calculation of 2D pore size and grain size distribution were done on the 299 slice of digital image of the Fontainebleau sandstone using Feret's diameters, equivalent diameters (d = 4A/P), and by means of local thickness/separation using plate model. For the 3D grain and pore size distribution, calculation of local thickness and local separation of the structure were used. Two dimensional analysis by means of Feret's diameter and equivalent diameter reveal that both grain and pore size distributions are in the form of reverse-J shaped (right skewed) while the local thickness/separation approach produces almost similar to symmetric Gaussian distribution. Three dimensional analysis produces fairly symmetric Gaussian distribution for both the grain and pore size. Further image processing were conducted and were succeed in producing three dimensional visual of the colour coded structure thickness (grain related) and structure separation (pore related).