[1] In this paper, we present a method that allows one to correct thermal conductivity measurements for the effect of water loss when extrapolating laboratory data to in situ conditions. The water loss in shales and unconsolidated rocks is a serious problem that can introduce errors in the characterization of reservoirs. For this study, we measure the thermal conductivity of four sandstones with and without clay minerals according to different water saturation levels using an optical scanner. Thermal conductivity does not decrease linearly with water saturation. At high saturation and very low saturation, thermal conductivity decreases more quickly because of spontaneous liquid displacement and capillarity effects. Apart from these two effects, thermal conductivity decreases quasi-linearly. We also notice that the samples containing clay minerals are not completely drained, and thermal conductivity reaches a minimum value. In order to fit the variation of thermal conductivity with the water saturation as a whole, we used modified models commonly presented in thermal conductivity studies: harmonic and arithmetic mean and geometric models. These models take into account different types of porosity, especially those attributable to the abundance of clay, using measurements obtained from nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). For argillaceous sandstones, a modified arithmetic-harmonic model fits the data best. For clean quartz sandstones under low water saturation, the closest fit to the data is obtained with the modified arithmetic-harmonic model, while for high water saturation, a modified geometric mean model proves to be the best.Citation: Jorand, R., A. Fehr, A. Koch, and C. Clauser (2011), Study of the variation of thermal conductivity with water saturation using nuclear magnetic resonance,

Abstract. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) relaxometry measurements are commonly used to characterize the storage and transport properties of water-saturated rocks. Estimations of these properties are based on the direct link of the initial NMR signal amplitude to porosity (water content) and of the NMR relaxation time to pore size. Herein, pore shapes are usually assumed to be spherical or cylindrical. However, the NMR response at partial water saturation for natural sediments and rocks may differ strongly from the responses calculated for spherical or cylindrical pores, because these pore shapes do not account for water menisci remaining in the corners of desaturated angular pores. Therefore, we consider a bundle of pores with triangular cross sections. We introduce analytical solutions of the NMR equations at partial saturation of these pores, which account for water menisci of desaturated pores. After developing equations that describe the water distribution inside the pores, we calculate the NMR response at partial saturation for imbibition and drainage based on the deduced water distributions.For this pore model, the NMR amplitudes and NMR relaxation times at partial water saturation strongly depend on pore shape, i.e., arising from the capillary pressure and pore shape-dependent water distribution in desaturated pores with triangular cross sections. Even so, the NMR relaxation time at full saturation only depends on the surface-to-volume ratio of the pore. Moreover, we show the qualitative agreement of the saturation-dependent relaxation-time distributions of our model with those observed for rocks and soils.

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