Grain reconstruction of porous media: Application to a low-porosity Fontainebleau sandstone - art. no. 061307

The fundamental issue of reconstructing a porous medium is examined anew in this paper, thanks to a sample of low-porosity Fontainebleau sandstone tha t has been analyzed by computed microtomography. Various geometric properti es are determined on the experimental sample. A statistical property, namel y, the probability density of the covering radius, is determined. This is u sed in order to reconstruct a porous medium by means of a Poissonian genera tion of polydisperse spheres. In a second part, the properties of the real experimental sample and of the reconstructed one are compared. The most imp ortant success of the present reconstruction technique is the fact that the numerical sample percolates despite its low porosity. Moreover, other geom etrical features and conductivity are found to be in good agreement.