Three-Dimensional Additive Manufacturing of Artificial Oil Reservoir Rock Core Plugs for Core Flooding Experimental Tests

Three-Dimensional Printing of Synthetic Core Plugs as an Alternative to Natural Core Plugs: Experimental and Numerical Study

“…The permeability of the sample can be determined using the Darcy equation, expressed in lattice units (LU) and time step (TS), as shown in Equation ( 8) [9].…”

“…The combination of 3D microtomographic image reconstruction of natural rocks and numerical simulation of pore-level flow complements, and in some cases replaces, traditional laboratory core flood testing [7]. Another approach to the reconstruction technique involves the development of porous media packages with different geometric, morphological, and anisotropic configurations using physics-based algorithms to simulate the sedimentation, compaction, and cementation processes that lead to rock formation [8][9][10]. This approach is very useful in developing of morphologically manipulated porous samples for research purposes, where it is necessary to control specific morphological parameters to tune or validate analytical and numerical models.…”

“…This approach is very useful in developing of morphologically manipulated porous samples for research purposes, where it is necessary to control specific morphological parameters to tune or validate analytical and numerical models. This approach is enhanced by combining it with additive manufacturing, which offers the possibility of 3D printing digital representations of porous structures obtained from CT images and physics-based algorithms [9].…”

“…For the digital construction of samples with the morphology of real rocks, digital grains of natural sandstone from Berea were used as particles for the packing of the samples. Digital grains were extracted from X-ray computed tomography of a cube of Berea sandstone with a resolution of 4.87 µm/voxel [9].…”

“…The geometries ranged from spheres to Berea sandstone grains. The texture of the grains could be modified by changing the voxelization to a convex hull (rounded grains) [9]. -…”