An Estimation of Rock Permeability and Its Anisotropy from Thin Sections Using a Renormalization Group Approach

Abstract

A renormalization group approach was applied to estimate both permeability and anisotropy of several real rocks directly from the image of thin sections. Two-point correlation functions were applied to estimate both local porosity and local specific surface area. Local permeability was calculated using the Kozeny-Carman formula. The calculated permeability tended to the measured permeability as the renormalization step increased. The coefficient of anisotropy of the samples varied from around 1.0 to 1.8. Estimation of permeability using renormalization groups was also performed for pseudo 3-D sections.

Keywords:

• anisotropy
• image processing
• permeability
• porosity
• thin section