Investigating Formation Factor–Hydraulic Conductivity Relations in Complex Geologic Environments: A Case Study in Taiwan

Abstract

The development of cost-effective methods for estimating hydraulic conductivity profiles has been an ongoing effort in the field of engineering practice, which can be used to increase availability to clarify the hydrogeological complexity of fractured rock aquifers for the aid of solving groundwater-related problems. A new methodology is presented, which combines electrical well logs, fluid conductivity logs, double-packer hydraulic tests, Archie’s law, and the Kozeny–Carman-Bear equation to investigate relations between formation factor (F) and hydraulic conductivity (K). Available geophysical and hydraulic test data measured from 88 boreholes in fractured rock formations in Taiwan were collected to perform the correlation studies. The correlation investigation outcomes indicate that the established F-K relations have the potential to serve as the transformation function for estimating hydraulic conductivity through the geological directly. To improve F-K relations in response to the effect of clay mineralogy, two proposed clustering techniques (the natural gamma ray threshold method and the modified Archie’s law method) successfully play an important role in filtering clayed data. The prevalence of clay content in most of Taiwan’s fractured rock formations has been found, which implies that careful consideration of clay-related issues in complex geologic formations is essential while applying Archie’s law theory. Finally, the predictive models for estimating hydraulic conductivity have been developed for three types of lithology (sandstone, schist, and slate).