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Quantifying the Representative Size in Porous Media

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Abstract

We present a new approach to quantify the representative quality of pore-scale samples of porous media. It is shown that the flow field uniformity serves as a reliable criterion to decide if the computed flow properties are representative at larger sample sizes. The proposed approach is computationally inexpensive and requires minimal effort to implement. We rely on the correlation matrix of flow field to quantify the representative quality of the computed flow properties at the pore scale. Using this approach, we have been able to study several pore-networks and a high-resolution image of a sandstone, and quickly answer if the computed flow properties from these pore-networks/images are representative of the actual media.

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Acknowledgments

This research was partly supported by the financial support from the Center for Frontiers of Subsurface Energy Security (CFSES) at The University of Texas at Austin under U.S. Department of Energy contract DE-SC0001114. Professor Martin J. Blunt from Imperial College and Hu Dong from iRock Technologies are gratefully thanked for sharing their network and micro-CT data with us.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station ACES, C0200, Austin, TX , 78712, USA

    Saeed Ovaysi & Mary F. Wheeler

  2. Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 1 University Station, C0300, Austin, TX , 78712, USA

    Matthew Balhoff

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  1. Saeed Ovaysi
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  2. Mary F. Wheeler
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  3. Matthew Balhoff
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Correspondence to Saeed Ovaysi.

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Ovaysi, S., Wheeler, M.F. & Balhoff, M. Quantifying the Representative Size in Porous Media. Transp Porous Med 104, 349–362 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11242-014-0338-z

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