Leveraging digital rock physics workflows in unconventional petrophysics: A review of opportunities, challenges, and benchmarking

摘要

Digital rock physics (DRP), via both direct numerical simulation and pore-network modeling, holds great promise in terms of probing such pore-scale controls on transport, particularly with multiphase flow and sensitivity analysis of time-intensive measurements such as relative permeability. However, despite advances in micro-computed tomography (microCT) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques, obtaining cost-effective representative elementary volumes (REV) at sufficient resolution that capture dual-scale porosity and surface textures remains a formidable challenge in establishing digital rock physics as a predictive toolset. Furthermore, implementers are faced with several options of numerical solvers such as finite element method, lattice Boltzmann method, and mass balance-based pore-network modeling. This paper reviews the current status of establishing an REV and upscaling techniques for DRP in tight and/or diagenetically-altered rocks, highlighting successful and unsuccessful pore-to-core data benchmarking examples by the authors and the greater literature in terms of static and dynamic properties.