The Percolation Properties of Electrical Conductivity and Permeability for Fractal Porous Media

He Meng, Qiang Shi, Tangyan Liu, FengXin Liu and Peng Chen
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He Meng: State Key Lab of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
Qiang Shi: Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina, Langfang 065007, China
Tangyan Liu: State Key Lab of Marine Geology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, China
FengXin Liu: Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina, Langfang 065007, China
Peng Chen: Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development, PetroChina, Langfang 065007, China

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: Many cases have indicated that the conductivity and permeability of porous media may decrease to zero at a nonzero percolation porosity instead of zero porosity. However, there is still a lack of a theoretical basis for the percolation mechanisms of the conductivity and permeability. In this paper, the analytical percolation expressions of both conductivity and permeability are derived based on fractal theory by introducing the critical porosity. The percolation models of the conductivity and permeability were found to be closely related to the critical porosity and microstructural parameters. The simulation results demonstrated that the existence of the critical could lead to the non-Archie phenomenon. Meanwhile, the increasing critical porosity could significantly decrease the permeability and the conductivity at low porosity. Besides, the complex microstructure could result in more stagnant pores and a higher critical porosity. This study proves the importance of the critical porosity in accurately evaluating the conductivity and permeability, and reveals the percolation mechanisms of the conductivity and permeability in complex reservoirs. By comparing the predicted conductivity and permeability with the available experimental data, the validity of the proposed percolation models is verified.

Keywords: percolation model; fractal theory; microstructure; critical porosity; conductivity; permeability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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