The use of standard deviation and skewness for estimating apparent permeability in a two-dimensional, heterogeneous medium

Abstract

In this theoretical study, characteristic or effective permeabilities (referred to as ‘apparent permeability’) of a radial/parallel flow system in a heterogeneous medium are calculated by the Monte Carlo method and the finite element method. The permeability distribution in the radial and parallel flow systems are not the same, as going from Cartesian to cylindrical coordinates changes the probability measure. The Bernoulli trials, the normal distribution or the log-normal distribution, is assumed to be the probability density function of permeability. The results are summarized as follows: (1) when the skewness of the distribution function is equal to zero or nearly equal to zero (that is, when the permeability distribution is regarded to be symmetric), the apparent permeability depends on the standard deviation, but not on the kind of distribution function, (2) when the skewness is not equal to zero, the apparent permeability depends not only on the standard deviation, but also on the skewness, (3) the above facts appeared in the radial and the parallel flow systems.