Skip to content
Micro-to-Macro
Programme background
Understanding how fluids flow through rock.
The programme made important discoveries about how fluids pass though pores in a rock, and how fluids travel along rock fractures.
Computer software developed by the programme lets laboratory studies be scaled up to whole regions.
The programme's results are valuable to the hydrocarbon, water resources and waste disposal industries, as well as to the research community. The programme built links between institutes and disciplines, and many projects had industrial support.
Advances
New tools to:
- measure clay content using magnetic susceptibility
- diagnose fracture activation using brine composition in chalks
- measure ultra-low permeabilities
- measure two-dimensional fluid velocities with particle imaging apparatus
- use high-resolution optical equipment to study fracture surfaces and apertures.
New models to:
- model porosity development - MOPOD
- create synthetic fracture systems tuned to real fracture properties - SYNFRAC
- predict seismic properties based on network models with pores, random micro cracks and aligned larger fractures
- model three-dimensional flow through complex fault zones.
Potential applications are:
- more reliable risk assessment in waste disposal and carbon dioxide sequestration;
- improved management of hydrocarbon and water resources;
- using biofilms to control the hydraulic properties of sedimentary and fractured rocks;
- developing porosity and fracture systems for use in flow and transport modelling.
Implications for reservoir characterisations and modelling include:
- fractures play a much more important role in fluid flow than is generally recognised;
- even unconnected fractures can significantly increase permeability;
- the relationship between permeability and fracture density is extremely non-linear, especially when close to critical density;
- permeability will vary with time, as fracture systems develop in response to changes in reservoir stress;
- all these factors must be taken into account for accurate predictions of fluid flow.