170 Hydrogeology (Posters)
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
9:00 AM - 6:00 PM
Hall A
EVOLUTION OF PERMEABILITY BY PRECIPITATES
Paper number: 170-17
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Authors
Abstract
Subsurface chemical and biological transformations often influence fluid flow by altering the pore space morphology and related hydrologic properties such as porosity and permeability. In most coupled-processes models changes in porosity are inferred from geochemical and biological process models using mass-balance. The corresponding evolution of permeability is estimated using (semi-) empirical porosity-permeability functions such as the Kozeny-Carman equation or power-law functions. These equations typically do not account for the heterogeneous spatial distribution and morphological irregularities of the geochemical precipitates and biomass. As a result, predictions of permeability evolution are generally unsatisfactory. In this communication, we demonstrate the significance of pore-scale precipitate distribution on porosity-permeability relations using high resolution simulations of fluid flow through a single pore interspersed with crystals. The results of this study point to the need for a fully coupled multiscale approach for describing evolution of flow properties.