VSG Performs Flow Simulations to Assess Permeability of Rock Surfaces

VSG, Burlington, MA, USA

VSG provides high-performance 3D visualization toolkits and software for a number of industries, including materials science and geosciences. One application of their technology is with American oil and gas reserves. The difficulty of accessing these sites has forced the industry to turn to the technique of injecting fluid under pressure into rock deposits. This technique requires knowledge of the structure of the shale formations in an oil field site and relies on being able to predict the ability of fluids to penetrate the rock.

A focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) system provides information at a nanoscale level for shale samples. VSG’s Avizo 3D Analysis software can then be used to construct a digitized 3D model representing the pore distribution while COMSOL Multiphysics software can perform a flow simulation on the detected pore network and determine permeability of the surface.

The calculations and simulations resulting from this process create a powerful visualization of the site and enables solving problems that cannot be measured in a physical lab.