Electromagnetic rock properties’ characterization and modeling using 3D micro-CT rock images

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper mainly focuses on the electromagnetic modeling aspect of the digital rock physics to understand the relationship between the micro-structures and contents within the structure to their electrical properties. This is achieved by using the 3D rock micro-CT images and performing electromagnetic modeling using the 3D numerical mixing law (finite difference method based), which is a robust numerical method with high efficiency. Based on the results of this investigation, one can establish the relationship between the rock structure/porous space-filling materials and the buck electrical properties, such as the permittivity and the conductivity. Two different 3D rock (sandstone and dacite) images with different image reconstruction processes were used to demonstrate the accuracy and efficiency of this method. Additionally, single-pole Debye model was also used to be compared with our results to further validate our proposed numerical method and also provide a potential approach to predict the oil saturation for future research study.