Replication of Carbonate Reservoir Pores at the Original Scale Using 3D Printing

Abstract

Summary 3D printing is becoming a powerful tool to visualize, reproduce, and experiment with porous media. Natural rocks are part of porous media that have always been a focus of studies on how fluids, such as hydrocarbons, greenhouse gases, and/or water, flow through porous systems. Scale and accuracy are among the most challenging factors for current 3D printing techniques when attempting to replicate the pore architecture of natural porous media such as rocks. However, current 3D printing techniques have resolution restraints during fabrication that make feature reproduction at the 1:1 scale almost impossible. A new emerging technology that uses two-photon lithography and ultraviolet-light curable resin allows for microscopic features to be resolved during fabrication. To test this technology, a pore network was obtained from tomographic data of a reservoir rock sample in Mexico (1 mm in diameter and 2 mm in height) and was 3D-printed at the original scale. The 3D-printed sample was subjected to optical and electron imaging to verify the accuracy of pore geometry. Incorporating lithographic printing into novel rock experiments that concern multi-scale, multi-physics models of fluid flow and deformation open unprecedented opportunity for more controlled prediction of reservoir fluid dynamics, carbon capture and storage, and continuum mechanics.