Raw and partially infiltrated carbon–carbon composite preforms have been scanned by high-resolution synchrotron radiation x-ray computerized microtomography. Three-dimensional high-quality images of the pore space have been produced at two distinct resolutions and have been used for the computation of transport properties: heat conductivity, binary gas diffusivities, Knudsen diffusivities, and viscous flow permeabilities. The computation procedures are based on a double change-of-scale strategy suited to the bimodal nature of pore space and on the local determination of transport anisotropy. Good agreement has been found between all calculated quantities and experimental data.

The porosity exposed in a series of petrographic thin sections from a sub-arkosic sandstone reservoir of the Alwyn area (North Sea) is described by 5 morphological porous descriptors, Pore-Types, obtained by quantitative image analysis procedures and pattern recognition algorithms developed by Ehrlich et al. (1991a). By combining Pore-Type data with capillary pressure curves, we obtain preliminary results showing that in the studied reservoir, the achieved Pore-Types relate better to petrophysics when they are complemented with a sedimentological information.

Heat and momentum transfer in a random generated porous media is investigated. 6 different random porous media are generated using a Monte-Carlo (MC) procedure. The continuity, momentum and energy equations are solved for a row of cylinders with a square cross-section (i.e. rods) representing the entire domain of a random porous medium. The microstructure properties of the random porous media such as the mean nearest neighbor distance and the standard deviations of Voronoi areas, nearest neighbor distance and neighbor orientation for each generated random porous medium are obtained and compared with each other. The velocity and temperature fields in the porous media are shown via isotherms and streamlines. The rods in the domain are classified into three groups as blocker, active and passive rods based on our observations from the temperature field and the variations of the Nusselt number of each rod. The preliminary obtained results show that it may be possible to predict the interfacial heat transfer coefficient in a random porous medium based on some microstructure properties.