A systematic method was presented to extract geometric properties.
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Multi technology coupling application on fractured media.
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The presented method is used in low permeability granite media.
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This method can be applied to multi-scale conditions.
Abstract
Permeability is a key parameter in describing the flow conductivity of rocks. But experimental measurements of the parameter not only consume time but also only provide us with limited data number. By analyzing digital images of cast thin sections of rock samples in micro-scale, this study presented a systematic method of extracting geometric parameters of fractures and applied it to the granite rock samples from fault F4 in Gansu Beishan, China, which have low permeability and poor water-containing property. With the extracted geometric parameters, the rock permeabilities were estimated by Kozeny-Carman equation and Lattice Boltzmann simulation and were compared with those obtained by pulse decay technique. The results show that although there exists abnormal values in the estimated porosities and permeabilities, in general the relative error is only about onefold for the conditions used in this study. The method proposed here would be useful in the permeability and porosity estimation for fractured rocks that have low hydraulic conductivity.
