Time-resolved synchrotron X-ray micro-tomography datasets of drainage and imbibition in carbonate rocks

Abstract

Multiphase flow in permeable media is a complex pore-scale phenomenon, which is important in many natural and industrial processes. To understand the pore-scale dynamics of multiphase flow, we acquired time-series synchrotron X-ray micro-tomographic data at a voxel-resolution of 3.28 μm and time-resolution of 38 s during drainage and imbibition in a carbonate rock, under a capillary-dominated flow regime at elevated pressure. The time-series data library contains 496 tomographic images (gray-scale and segmented) for the complete drainage process, and 416 tomographic images (gray-scale and segmented) for the complete imbibition process. These datasets have been uploaded on the publicly accessible British Geological Survey repository, with the objective that the time-series information can be used by other groups to validate pore-scale displacement models such as direct simulations, pore-network and neural network models, as well as to investigate flow mechanisms related to the displacement and trapping of the non-wetting phase in the pore space. These datasets can also be used for improving segmentation algorithms for tomographic data with limited projections.

The Effect of Mixed Wettability on Pore‐Scale Flow Regimes Based on a Flooding Experiment in Ketton Limestone

“…Following Lenormand et al () the mobility ratio and capillary number indicate that both experiments discussed in this work belong to the same flow domain and are therefore comparable. The images with a voxel size of 3.28 μm and a time resolution of 38 s have been reconstructed, filtered, and segmented following the workflow described in Singh et al (). As for the mixed‐wet sample the resulting images were used for event determination and quantification.…”

“…We gratefully acknowledge Shell Global Solutions International B.V. for permission to publish this work. The water‐wet Ketton data are available from Singh and Blunt (; https://doi.org/10.5285/3aa44060-d4fd-453f-9e5b-7d885ad5089f). The mixed‐wet Ketton data are available from Rücker et al (; http://www.digitalrocksportal.org/projects/202).…”

Verifying pore network models of imbibition in rocks using time-resolved synchrotron imaging

“…Details of the Ketton and Gildehauser unsteady-state (constant injection flow rate) imbibition experiments are described in Singh et al [2017] and Rücker et al [2015]. Both datasets are publicly available [Singh et al, 2018;Berg et al, 2018]. Ketton and Gildehauser (the latter a local variety of Bentheimer) respectively have a porosity of 23 % and 20 %; and a permeability of 2.8 × 10 −12 m 2 and 1.48 × 10 −12 m 2 [Andrew et al, 2014].…”

Computational Microfluidics for Geosciences

“…Wettability plays a key role in multiphase flow in porous media (De Gennes, 1985;Singh et al, 2018). Accurate prediction of multiphase flow in the soils and the subsurface for geoenvironmental issues including Carbon Capture and geological Storage, water resources remediation, or Enhanced Oil Recovery requires an in-depth understanding at the pore-scale of the key mechanisms that influence the fluid displacements and dynamics including viscous and capillary forces but also the solid surface wettability.…”