Morphological Transformation Strategy for the Computation of Effective Physical Properties Using Digital Rock

Abstract

Digital Core Technology using micro-CT images provides a new way for rock physics study with many advantages comparing with traditional rock physics experiment. The effective physical properties of rock sample can be numerically evaluated using 3D digital core model and multi-physics simulator. However, there are various factors that could affect the accuracy of the numerical computation of rock properties, for example, the morphological transformation in the process of digital core modeling using scanned images. In this paper, three digital core models with voxel 6003 are investigated by using different morphological transformation strategies. By cooperating the software SimpleWare™ and COMSOL Multiphysics®, the porosity and pore structure of the core models are calculated, and the effective electrical properties of core models are simulated. Different morphological transformation strategies applying to the same core sample lead to different porosity calculation results. It is shown that the image processing algorithms affect the pore structure reconstruction as well, which will bring great influence on the computation of sample electrical properties. By examining the influences of different morphological transformation strategies on the physical property computation of rock sample, we propose appropriate morphological transformation strategy based on the core structure. This work can provide some valuable insights for the future digital core experiment.