NMR of geophysical drill cores with a mobile Halbach scanner

摘要

This thesis is devoted to a mobile NMR with an improved Halbach scanner. This is a lightweight tube-shaped magnet with sensitive volume larger and a homogeneity of the magnetic field higher than the previous prototype version. The improved Halbach scanner is used for analysis of water-saturated drill cores and plugs with diameters up to 60 mm. To provide the analysis, the standard 1D techniques with the CPMG sequence as well as 2D correlation experiments were successfully applied and adapted to study properties of fluid-saturated sediments. Afterwards the Halbach scanner was calibrated to fast non-destructive measurements of porosity, relaxation time distributions, and estimation of permeability. These properties can be calculated directly from the NMR data using the developed methodology. Any independent measurements of these properties with other methods are not needed. One of the main results of this work is the development of a new NMR on-line core scanner for measurements of porosity in long cylindrical and semi cylindrical drill cores. Also dedicated software was written to operate the NMR on-line core scanner. The physical background of this work is the study of the diffusion influence on transverse relaxation. The diffusion effect in the presence of internal gradients in porous media was probed by 1D and 2D experiments. The transverse relaxation time distributions obtained from 1D and from 2D experiments are comparable but different in fine details. Two new methodologies were developed based on the results of this study. First is the methodology quantifying the influence of diffusion in the internal gradients of water-saturated sediments on transverse relaxation from 2D correlation experiments. The second one is the correction of the permeability estimation from the NMR data taking in account the influence of the diffusion. Furthermore, PFG NMR technique was used to study restricted diffusion in the same kind of samples. Preliminary results are reported.