179

Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko

Fluid Flow and Permeability
180
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Viscosity describes the shear stresses that develop in a
flowing fluid.
Shear stress in the fluid is proportional to the fluid velocity gradient.
Where is the viscosity. Or in terms of the strain rate:
Units:
Water at 20
o
C:
V
Stationary
z
x
Fluid
Velocity
Profile

o
xz
=q
cV
x
cz

o
xz
= 2q
cc
xz
ct

cc
xz
ct
=
1
2
cV
x
cz

1Poise =1
dyne sec
cm
2
= 0.1
newton sec
m
2

q~.01Poise ~1centiPoise

q
181
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Darcys Law:
where
volumetric flow rate
permeability of the medium
viscosity of the fluid
cross sectional area
Differential form:
where is the filtration velocity
Darcy found experimentally that fluid diffuses through a porous
medium according to the relation

Q=
k
q
A
AP
Al

Q =
k =
q =
A =

V =
k
q
grad P ( )

V

AP

Al
Darcys Law
182
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Units
Darcys law:
Permeability has dimensions of area, or m
2
in SI units. But the
more convenient and traditional unit is the Darcy.
In a water saturated rock with permeability of 1 Darcy, a pressure
gradient of 1 bar/cm gives a flow velocity of 1 cm/sec.

Q=
k
q
A
AP
Al

1Darcy ~10
12
m
2

k
Darcys Law
183
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Kozeny-Carman Relation
The most common permeability model is to assume
that rocks have nice round pipes for pore fluids to flow.
Compare this with general Darcys law:
Combining the two gives the permeability
of a circular pipe:
We can rewrite this permeability in terms of familiar rock parameters, giving
the Kozeny-Carman equation:
where: is the porosity
S is the specific pore surface area
is the tortuosity
d is a typical grain diameter
B is a geometric factor
The classical solution for laminar flow
through a circular pipe gives:
strong scale
dependence!

Q=
k
q
A
AP
Al

Q=
tR
4
8q
AP
Al

k =
tR
4
8A
=
tR
2
A
|
\

|
.
|
R
2
8

k =
B|
3
t
2
S
2

k =
B|
3
d
2
t
2R

|

t
184
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Schematic porosity/permeability relationship in rocks from
Bourbi, Coussy, Zinszner, 1987, Acoustics of Porous
Media, Gulf Publishing Co.
H.1
10
-9
10
-7
10
-5
10
-3
10
-1
10
1
1 10
P
e
r
m
e
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

(
D
a
r
c
y
)
Porosity (%)
Clays
and
shales
Silts
Micritic
sandstones
Shaly
sandstones
Granular
limestones
Crystalline
rocks
Tight
sediments
Clean coarse-
grained sandstones
Strong dependence of
permeability on grain
and pore size
185
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Demonstration of Kozeny-Carman relation in sintered glass, from Bourbi, Coussy, and Zinszner,
1987, Acoustics of Porous Media, Gulf Publishing Co.
H.2
Here we compare the permeability for two synthetic porous materials having very
different grain sizes. When normalized by grain-size squared, the data fall on top
of each other -- confirming the scale dependence.
1
10
100
1000
0 10 20 30 40 50
280 m spheres
50 m spheres
k
/
d
2
(
x
1
0
e
-
6
)
Porosity (%)
Sintered Glass
186
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
H.3
A particularly systematic variation of permeability with porosity for
Fontainebleau sandstone. Note that the slope increases at small
porosity, indicating an exponent on porosity larger than the power of 3
predicted by the Kozeny-Carman relation.
1
10
100
1000
10000
2 4 6 8 10

P
e
r
m
e
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

(
m
D
)
Porosity (%)
2 30
n = 8
n = 3
k = a |
n
Demonstration of Kozeny-Carman relation in sintered glass, from Bourbi, Coussy, and Zinszner,
1987, Acoustics of Porous Media, Gulf Publishing Co.
187
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Kozeny-Carman Relation with Percolation
Hot-pressed Calcite (Bernabe et al, 1982), showing a good fit to the data
using the Kozeny-Carman relation modified by a percolation porosity.
As porosity decreases from cementation and compaction, it is common
to encounter a percolation threshold where the remaining porosity is
isolated or disconnected. This porosity obviously does not contribute to
permeability. Therefore, we suggest, purely heuristically, replacing
giving
H.4
| ||
P
|
\

|
.
|
k= B ||
P
|
\

|
.
|
3
d
2
k= B |.045
|
\

|
.
|
3
d
2
0.00001
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
P
e
r
m
e
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

(
m
D
)
.05
Porosity
.20 .10
|
p
~ 0.045
188
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Fused Glass Beads (Winkler, 1993)
H.5
k= B |.035
|
\

|
.
|
3
d
2
0.0001
0.001
0.01
0.1
1
10
100
P
e
r
m
e
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

/

D
2
200 micron
Porosity
100 micron
50 micron
.05
.50 .10
|
p
~ 0.035
P
e
r
m
e
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

(
m
D
)

189
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Fontainebleau Sandstone (Bourbi et al, 1987)
H.6
Here we show the same Fontainebleau sandstone data as before with
the Kozeny-Carman relation modified by a percolation porosity of 2.5%.
This accounts for the increased slope at low porosities, while retaining
the exponent of 3.
k= B |.025
|
\

|
.
|
3
d
2
1
10
100
1000
10000
P
e
r
m
e
a
b
i
l
i
t
y

(
m
D
)
Porosity
.02 .30 .05 .10
|
p
~ 0.025
190
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Sandstone Data
H.7

d = .5mm; |
p
= 0

d = .18mm; |
p
= 0

d = .06mm; |
p
= 0.03

d = .02mm; |
p
= 0.04
Data from Tiab and Donaldson, 1996
191
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Diffusion
The stress-strain law for a fluid (Hookes law) is
which can be written as
combining with Darcys law:
gives the classical diffusion equation:
where D is the diffusivity

c
oo
=
1
K
P

V-V =
1
K
cP
ct

V =
k
q
VP

V
2
P =
q
kK
cP
ct

V
2
P =
1
D
cP
ct
192
Stanford Rock Physics Laboratory - Gary Mavko
Examples of Diffusion Behavior
1-D diffusion from an initial pressure pulse
Standard result:
Characteristic time scale

t =
x
2
4D

P x,t =
P
0
4tDt
e
x
2
4Dt
=
P
0
4tDt
e
t
t