• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.447-455
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• 2013

A micro-mechanical pipe network model with the shape of a cube was developed to simulate the behavior of fluid flow through a porous medium. The fluid-flow mechanism through the cubic pipe network channels was defined mainly by introducing a well-known percolation theory (Stauffer and Aharony, 1994). A non-uniform flow generally appeared because all of the pipe diameters were allocated individually in a stochastic manner based on a given pore-size distribution curve and porosity. Fluid was supplied to one surface of the pipe network under a certain driving pressure head and allowed to percolate through the pipe networks. A percolation condition defined by capillary pressure with respect to each pipe diameter was applied first to all of the network pipes. That is, depending on pipe diameter, the fluid may or may not penetrate a specific pipe. Once pore pressures had reached equilibrium and steady-state flow had been attained throughout the network system, Darcy's law was used to compute the resultant permeability. This study investigated the sensitivity of network size to permeability calculations in order to find out the optimum network size which would be used for all the network modelling in this study. Mean pore size and pore size distribution curve obtained from field are used to define each of pipe sizes as being representative of actual oil sites. The calculated and measured permeabilities are in good agreement.