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Topological Persistence for Relating Microstructure and Capillary Fluid Trapping in Sandstones
Author(s) -
Herring A. L.,
Robins V.,
Sheppard A. P.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/2018wr022780
Subject(s) - imbibition , topology (electrical circuits) , trapping , persistent homology , euler number (physics) , geometry , porous medium , complex fluid , fluid dynamics , porosity , physics , mathematics , mechanics , algorithm , geology , euler equations , mathematical analysis , geotechnical engineering , ecology , botany , germination , backward euler method , combinatorics , biology , semi implicit euler method
Abstract Results from a series of two‐phase fluid flow experiments in Leopard, Berea, and Bentheimer sandstones are presented. Fluid configurations are characterized using laboratory‐based and synchrotron based 3‐D X‐ray computed tomography. All flow experiments are conducted under capillary‐dominated conditions. We conduct geometry‐topology analysis via persistent homology and compare this to standard topological and watershed‐partition‐based pore‐network statistics. Metrics identified as predictors of nonwetting fluid trapping are calculated from the different analytical methods and are compared to levels of trapping measured during drainage‐imbibition cycles in the experiments. Metrics calculated from pore networks (i.e., pore body‐throat aspect ratio and coordination number) and topological analysis (Euler characteristic) do not correlate well with trapping in these samples. In contrast, a new metric derived from the persistent homology analysis, which incorporates counts of topological features as well as their length scale and spatial distribution, correlates very well ( R 2 = 0.97) to trapping for all systems. This correlation encompasses a wide range of porous media and initial fluid configurations, and also applies to data sets of different imaging and image processing protocols.