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AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Keywords

  • capillary pressure
  • electric permittivity
  • interfacial area

Index Terms

  • Electromagnetics: General or miscellaneous
  • Physical Properties of Rocks: Magnetic and electrical properties
  • Physical Properties of Rocks: General or miscellaneous
  • Physical Properties of Rocks: Transport properties
  • Physical Properties of Rocks: Instruments and techniques

Abstract

Capillary pressure as a unique function of electric permittivity and water saturation

Willem-Jan Plug

Department of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Evert Slob

Department of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Jan van Turnhout

Faculty of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

Johannes Bruining

Department of Geotechnology, Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands

The relation between capillary pressure (P c ) and interfacial area has been investigated by measuring P c and the electric permittivity at 100 kHz simultaneously as function of the water saturation, (S w ). Drainage and imbibition experiments have been conducted for sand-distilled water-gas (CO2/N2) systems. The main capillary cycles and the scanning curves show hysteresis with the drainage curves displaying higher values than the imbibition curves. The 100 kHz permittivity data also show hysteresis between drainage and imbibition. Furthermore non-monotonic behavior is observed, which is analogous to the interfacial area characteristics obtained from network and micro-pore models. The permittivity behavior is attributed to polarization of the gas-water and water-solid interfaces. The permittivity hysteresis is provoked by the different phase distributions and geometries. Our results show that P c is a unique function of the permittivity and S w , and therefore this work provides clear evidence that the permittivity is a measure for the interfacial area.

Received 16 February 2007; accepted 5 June 2007; published 10 July 2007.

Citation: Plug, W.-J., E. Slob, J. van Turnhout, and J. Bruining (2007), Capillary pressure as a unique function of electric permittivity and water saturation, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L13306, doi:10.1029/2007GL029674.

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