Characterization of fluid flow in a shear band in porous rock using neutron radiography

Abstract

The challenge of understanding how localized deformation modifies fluid flow in porous rock is addressed. New approaches are presented, based on neutron radiography and digital image analyses, to track fluid flow in rock specimens and to calculate flow velocity fields providing local flow measurements. The results show that neutron radiography, backed up by appropriate image analysis, is a very powerful tool in this context, being far more sensitive to the fluids in the rock than X‐ray radiography. Analysis of neutron radiography images of water imbibition into a laboratory‐deformed sandstone specimen has provided new measurements of local fluid flow velocities within a shear band, indicating that flow is faster and water storage is higher in the band (attributed to higher capillary forces associated with damage).