Introduction to Digital Rock Physics and Predictive Rock Properties of Reservoir Sandstone

Abstract

Rock properties analysis (porosity, permeability, elastic modulus, and wave velocity) of the rock is important to note as one of the methods to determine the characteristics of the reservoir rock. Rock properties can calculated in conventional (laboratory), indirect (inversion of seismic waves), and digital computation (Digital Rock Physics). This paper will introduce and discuss the digital calculation/simulation and empirical equation to predict the value of the rock properties from reservoir sandstone. The data used is the samples of the data sandstone core (reservoir) subsurface in an oil field. The research method is to combine the data from a thin layer, a digital image of rocks in three-dimensional (μ-CT-Scan), and empirical approaches of the equations of permeability on rocks and Lattice Boltzmann equation. Digital image of a scanned using μ-CT-Scan used to determine value rock properties and pore structure at the microscale and visualize the shape of the pores of rock samples in 3D. The method combined with rock physics can be powerful tools for determining rock properties from small rock fragments.