Abstract
A standard digital rock physics workflow aims to simulate petrophysical properties of rock samples using few millimeter size subsets scanned with X-ray microtomography at a high resolution of around 1 μm. The workflow is mainly based on image analysis and simulation procedures at a subset scale leading to potential uncertainties and errors that cannot be quantified experimentally. To overcome the gap between scales, we propose to integrate three-dimensional (3D) printing technology to generate enlarged subsets at a scale where experimental measurements are feasible to validate simulated results. In this study, we 3D printed synthetic and real samples and compared digital and experimental rock properties. The most challenging phase in the workflow consists of the difficulties encountered while cleaning the 3D printed samples to remove the support material. Results for subsets extracted from synthetic, sandstone, and carbonate samples showed good agreement between digital and experimental measurements for porosity values less than 12% and a range of permeability values between 100 and 2000 mD.
Highlights
Digital rock physics (DRP) aims to better characterize rock properties of oilfield reservoir samples using X-ray microtomography images and numerical simulations
At the image acquisition step, the resolution of the scanned image is constrained by the sample size.[1−3] if we need to image a sample at a fine scale, we need to extract physically a few millimeter size subset and scan it
Several DRP studies in sandstone reservoirs showed that finescale simulations on few millimeter subsets considered as a representative element volume (REV) provide simulated rock properties in good agreement with experimental properties measured at a coarse scale.[4−8] this type of approach reaches its limitation in carbonate rocks due to their heterogeneities.[9−11] For carbonate reservoir rocks, the general workflow includes an additional step consisting of characterizing subsets at a fine scale representative of the various textures visualized at a coarse scale
Summary
Digital rock physics (DRP) aims to better characterize rock properties of oilfield reservoir samples using X-ray microtomography images and numerical simulations. Smaller subsets of few millimeter size are physically extracted and scanned at a fine scale (around 1 μm) to characterize the pore network. Several DRP studies in sandstone reservoirs showed that finescale simulations on few millimeter subsets considered as a representative element volume (REV) provide simulated rock properties in good agreement with experimental properties measured at a coarse scale.[4−8] this type of approach reaches its limitation in carbonate rocks due to their heterogeneities.[9−11] For carbonate reservoir rocks, the general workflow includes an additional step consisting of characterizing subsets at a fine scale representative of the various textures visualized at a coarse scale. We propose to study the feasibility of using 3D printing to enlarge fine-scale subset images to a size that allows for experimental studies and the one-to-one validation of simulated results (Figure 1)
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