Publications Details
Beyond pretty pictures: Quantifying porous media properties and transport processes using transmission and emission CT
While gaining increasing interest, the use of Computerized Tomography (CT) in porous media studies has been limited by the availability of quantitative methods of analysis. Three methods are presented for the analysis of CT data and applied to images obtained from gamma transmission and gamma emission systems. The first utilizes measurement statistics and image histograms to provide exact estimates of multiple component volume contents. An improved thresholding technique in the second method allows an identification of individual voxel composition. The threshold utilizes error statistics to eliminate the arbitrary nature of current methods. Emission tomography images of solute transport are shown in the third procedure to provide in-situ measures of transport in fractured media. Application of each method is demonstrated on samples of the Culebra Dolomite of the Rustler Formation, New Mexico. Dolomite cores were collected by horizontal drilling at a depth of 218 m in the air intake shaft of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant located near Carlsbad, New Mexico.