Estimating permeability using median pore-throat radius obtained from mercury intrusion porosimetry

Abstract

Mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) has been widely used to characterize the pore structure for various types of porous media. Several relationships between permeability and pore structure information (e.g., porosity and pore-size distribution) have been developed in the literature. This work is to introduce a new, and simpler, empirical equation to predict permeability by solely using the median pore-throat radius (r50), which is the pore-throat radius corresponding to 50% mercury saturation. The total of 18 samples used in this work have a wide range of permeability, from 10-6 to 103 mD, which makes the new equation more applicable. The predicted permeabilities by using the new equation are comparable with permeability values obtained from other measurement methods, as shown from ten samples with permeability data measured with nitrogen.