Characterization of water imbibition in sandstones studied using nuclear magnetic resonance

doi:10.7523/j.issn.2095-6134.2017.05.011

Abstract

Abstract: Characterization of water imbibition in porous media is important in a variety of engineering and geological contexts.This work is aimed at investigating sorption characteristics of sandstones and how they are related to the pore structure of samples and boundary conditions.Over the past decades,NMR techniques have been proven to be reliable for visualizing the water distribution and quantifying the dynamic transport process of water in porous media.In this study,Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) measurement was used to obtain the T₂ distribution which showed the change in water content in pores of different sizes with time.Moreover,one-dimensional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) profile measurement was used to obtain the water content profiles during water imbibition into artificial sandstone samples in a quantitative and non-destructive manner.In order to understand the characteristics of water absorption and factors influencing the process,results of imbibition in samples of different permeability were compared by performing one-dimensional and three-dimensional NMR experiments.Sorptivity based on Fickian diffusion was adopted to make a quantitative analysis of sandstone samples. The results showed that sample of high permeability had a greater amount of water absorption with less time.In addition,the cumulative water absorption varied linearly with t^1/2 as expected.Therefore the sorptivity was derived directly to be 0.036 8 cm/min^1/2 with the correlation coefficient r=0.996 7.However,the increase of water content slowed down after the wetting front reached the top of the sample,which could be explained by the retarding effect of evaporation on the sample surface.

Key words: water imbibition, capillary, artificial sandstone, nuclear magnetic resonance, water transport

CLC Number:

P641.2

ZHANG Qian, DONG Yanhui, TONG Shaoqing. Characterization of water imbibition in sandstones studied using nuclear magnetic resonance[J]. , 2017, 34(5): 610-617.

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