Casting and imaging technique for determining void geometry and relative permeability behavior of a single fracture specimen.

摘要

A casting technique has been developed for making translucent replicas of the void space of natural rock fractures. Attenuation of light shined through the cast combined with digital image analysis provides a pointwise definition of fracture apertures. The technique has been applied to a fracture specimen from Dixie Valley, Nevada, and the measured void space geometry has been used to develop theoretical predictions of two-phase relative permeability. A strong anisotropy in relative permeabilities has been found, which is caused by highly anisotropic spatial correlations among fracture apertures. 16 refs., 6 figs.